SteamOS - The Valve Operating System

[vadermath]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/09/23/after-glados-valve-releasing-steamos/

http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamOS/

Sooo...Valve are making a Linux-based gaming operating system which will be integrated with Steam (obviously). For something they call "Living room machines". That's a curious one, seeing as they obviously don't mean Xbox and PS. So they're either making a console of their own, or they're trying to make PCs living room-friendly. And if so, are they making some sort of new innovative controllers?

http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/

And it appears 2 more related announcements are planned for the next few days. I'm guessing a Steam console or controller is one of them, judging by the controller pic on the page.

Update: http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamMachines/

The SteamOS will, apparently, be tested alongside 'Steam Machines'. They refer to these as "Steam gaming machines", with a range of specs to choose from. Or, as I see them, Valve-built PCs optimized for the living room and their new OS. They're going to ship 300 of those for free, to 300 applicable Steam users (see instructions). The important bits for the tl;dr folk who can't be bothered to read the link:

- The Machines'll be available for purchase next year, while the prototypes will be sent out by the end of 2013.

- The beta participants will have no NDA, so they'll be allowed to share their testing experience with the public.

- Other ordinary, home-made PCs will also be able to run SteamOS.

- During the testing period, both SteamOS and its source-code will be available for download.

- Q: What games will be available during the beta?

  A: The nearly 3,000 games on Steam. Hundreds already running natively on the SteamOS, with more to come. The rest will work seamlessly via in-home                                 
      streaming.

I guess this is their solution for games running on their Linux-based OS? Those that aren't made compatible will be streamed from our Windows PCs. It's a very non-elegant solution, but I think Valve are making a gamble here; they're going to try to convince big developers to make games for their new OS in the future, which should make their consoles (though I guess those are actually PCs?) viable long-term. Hmmm.

 

[Austupaio]

I hate big picture, so I'm hoping that their OS won't feel too much like that. Otherwise, this sounds interesting.

Windows is such an inefficient OS and if theirs is better, I would make the switch. A slightly more user-friendly Linux has been something I've wanted for a while.

 

[vadermath]

****, if this thing has Half-Life 3 on it, I'll be willing to plug my PC onto my TV

 

[Austupaio]

My wife's computer is a lap top, but the frame is badly broken so she's permanently using the TV anyway.

 

[Ringwraith #5]

****, if this thing has Half-Life 3 on it, I'll be willing to plug my PC onto my TV

You do realize that means HL3 will be a console shooter, right? If they do make their own 'console'/PC in a fancy box, I bet you that's how they're going to make people buy it. I thought to myself, why would anybody give a ****? HL3, that's why. They'll make it an exclusive and people in their millions will buy the damn box just for that. And it's going to be awful. HL3 on a gamepad? My mind reels at the mere thought of the horror.

 

[K-64]

Let's be honest, HL2 isn't exactly phenomenal either. The only reason people like it is because it's made by Valve. Same with most every other game they've made.

 

[Shatari]

You do realize that means HL3 will be a console shooter, right? If they do make their own 'console'/PC in a fancy box, I bet you that's how they're going to make people buy it. I thought to myself, why would anybody give a ****? HL3, that's why. They'll make it an exclusive and people in their millions will buy the damn box just for that. And it's going to be awful. HL3 on a gamepad? My mind reels at the mere thought of the horror.

Maybe they'll be the first console company in history to realize that USB mice and keyboards allow you to have decent controls on your system in addition to crappy ones.

 

[Goker]

I give very little ****s about this.

 

[vadermath]

Let's be honest, HL2 isn't exactly phenomenal either. The only reason people like it is because it's made by Valve. Same with most every other game they've made.

As far as shooters go, HL2 (especially Episode 2) was ****ing awesome. People like Valve because they make good games, they don't like the games because they're made by Valve

And if they decide to make HL3 SteamOS exclusive, they'll probably be making some sort of gamepad to go with it that wouldn't totally suck.

 

[Austupaio]

I was never super excited about Half-Life after OpFor.

I finished Half-Life, Blue Shift and Op For, tinkered with HL2 and played the episodes for a few minutes but yeah... they're solid but they're not amazing.

 

[Ringwraith #5]

Let's be honest, HL2 isn't exactly phenomenal either. The only reason people like it is because it's made by Valve. Same with most every other game they've made.

Disagree. I don't give a **** about Valve, if anything I mildly dislike them because of Steam, and I still enjoyed HL2 a lot. More than any other FPS I can think of. Which is probably because I can't stand FPS, so that's actually saying a lot. It's certainly not flawless and IMO it's somewhat overrated (far less so than HL1, though), but it was pretty damn solid.

 

[Vovolov]

I'm looking forward to the rage when they announce HL3 is going to be SteamOS only.

(Personally, I'd install SteamOS for it.)

 

[Kevlar]

I give very little ****s about this.

Until they can actually manage to get ever publisher to start producing games for linux this won't even matter. Wake me up when that happens and maybe I will install this.

Also, shouldn't this be in the software/hardware section, steamos isn't a game, its software 

 

[vadermath]

Sure. Because you've totally read the links I provided, which means you know they've already announced the entire current Steam catalog will be compatible with the new OS (which means any future games on Steam will also be compatible). And I'm certain Valve haven't been developing this for the past 3 years, so they haven't really thought it through, and are just going to sell Linux games from now on.

See? I can use the annoying rolleyes too.

 

[Kevlar]

I aint got time to read about some linux based OS 

The entire steam catalogue seems far fetched though, I assume that would simply mean valve catalogue.

 

[Ringwraith #5]

That's not what it says. The "full catalog" thing talks about streaming, i.e. you run Windows games on your old Windows machine and stream it from that to the SteamOS machine via your home network. Or, as Valve put it, "turn on your existing computer and run Steam as you always have - then your SteamOS machine can stream those games over your home network straight to your TV". What they don't say is why the **** I should do that instead of just plugging my television into my computer but whatever. Why simply swap a cable when you can buy a whole another computer to achieve the same thing in a much more complicated and expensive way that introduces lag, right?

There are probably some Linux-compatible games on Steam, but the fact of the matter is that Windows games don't run on Linux without emulation, and there's no way Valve convinced every single developer that has a game on Steam to make a Linux version just for them.

 

[Tuckles]

Ringwraith has the right of it. Although they have "hundreds" of games running natively on the OS.

 

[Ringwraith #5]

Sure, if it's a Linux-based system, anything that has a Linux version will run on it. There are currently over 2000 games on Steam, it doesn't seem unreasonable that at least 10% of them have a Linux version. There, hundreds. How many of those are things anyone would actually want to play is another matter, though. I'm a bit skeptical, I have to say. Though if anyone has the clout to push Linux as a gaming system, it's Valve. I hope this works, I would dearly love to swap to Linux. The only reason I haven't yet is because there are only like three games on it.

 

[Splintert]

Not to mention functional drivers are nonexistent, it's a ***** to get anything working and what does work is always obscure clones of fully functional Windows software.

 

[Frosty]

Sounds pretty confusing, I'll stick to Windows