Full Steam Ahead

Valve Announces SteamOS

After a tease late last week about bringing Steam into the living room, Valve's announcement today surprised exactly nobody. Unveiling SteamOS, the company appears to be taking a direct swipe at their console counterparts.

Steam TV

In what appears to be an evolution of Steam's "Big Picture" mode, SteamOS is described as a free stand-alone operating system for...'living room machines'...whatever that means. Perhaps it's Vavle's way of saying the OS can be installed on PCs or laptops. Whatever it is, I'm intrigued by the timing here.

The the only mention of availability is "soon", my guess is that it will drop right around the time a large amount of people will be bringing shiny new consoles into their living rooms. In just under two months, Sony and Microsoft both launch their highly anticipated and highly pre-ordered next generation systems. Is Valve taking aim?

S Box

I'm most curious to see if Steam Box is still a reality, either as a product or maybe just a concept. Whatever form Valve's new living room experience takes, they are already promising a large library of games and virtually not transition from the current setup. The current library will be accessible via streaming, but most intriguing is the company's wording about the library. They are promising more announcements regarding all the AAA titles coming to the system in 2014. The more I read, the more this sounds like an attempt to steal Sony and Microsoft's thunder. Given Valve's apparent love of sales and other deep discounts (um, Summer Sale anyone), it will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

This is supposedly just the beginning of what Valve will be unveiling in the coming weeks. I don't think very many people took Valve seriously when they started talking about taking over the living room. Whether they succeed or not, clearly they have lofty ambitions. While I'll be enjoying my PlayStation 4 on November 15th, I can't help but wonder which company will have the dominant place in my living room.