The company Valve introduced its own operating system SteamOS, based on Linux and designed for gaming computers. SteamOS will be completely free and is the first step to creating the Valve Steam Box, an open gaming center of the future, which would combine the outstanding digital gaming distribution platform and friendly user interface on your TV screens.
"Very soon, SteamOS will become available as a free, independent operating system for home computers."
Interestingly, Valve says that the main game developers decided to support Linux and present their AAA titles, developed specifically for SteamOS, as early as 2014. But that is not all. "Iron", working on the basis of SteamOS, will easily support and a huge library of existing games for Windows in streaming mode. The essence of the work of such a system in this case will be very similar to the work of the portable console Nvidia Shield. Only here the game will be broadcast from your computer not to a portable set-top box, but to your home TV. Without wires.
In addition, Valve noted that Steam (like SteamOS itself) will receive support for streaming video and music services.
“We are already working on resolving this issue with many media services with which you yourself should definitely be familiar with,” Valve says and immediately tries to explain why she decided to work with her own operating system: “Since we want our digital distribution service was able to get to your living room, then we came to the conclusion that the best way to deliver goods to our customers would be an operating system that is built around Steam itself. ”
Valve says that by working at the level of an entire operating system, they were able to increase overall graphics performance and reduce delays when using game controllers (this is the Big Picture mode for Steam).
Another reason to work on the whole OS (although Valve itself does not directly indicate this) is that Valve sees a direct threat to Windows 8. Company founder Gabe Newell once called Windows 8 a disaster and publicly accused Microsoft of literally drowning PC sales. But the hidden meaning of releasing your own OS for Valve is likely that Windows 8 has its own built-in app and game store, which in theory has the potential to lower Steam revenues from game sales and in turn allow Microsoft to move into this area forward.
However, Valve itself sets more noble tasks for SteamOS:
“Openness means that the end products of the iron industry will be able to adapt much faster to the living room of their customers. Content creators can interact directly with their users. The users themselves will be allowed to change any part of the software and hardware they want. Gamers will be able to take part in the creation of games that they like. ”
In other words, it all looks like a strategy that is used for the development and promotion of Android: Google provides gadget manufacturers with Linus-based open source operating systems so that they can compete with Apple's iOS. Valve wants to achieve the same, so that it can compete with such a giant as Microsoft.
But that's not all that told Valve. The company has made many promises, but has not yet gone into the details of their implementation. The announcement of SteamOS was only the first major announcement held this week, and Gabe Newel's company has two more very loud announcements for us. The second big announcement Valve is going to make on September 25, when, most likely (as suggested by The Verge portal), will present its own version of the Steam Box, running under SteamOS.
In January of this year, Newel announced that Valve plans to create three types of Steam Box, while operating in such vague terms as "good", "even better" and "coolest". By “good” it was quite possible that there was a “box” for $ 99, which would allow streaming games from more powerful sources that they would work on (talking about a computer). By “even better,” it was most likely meant that the company itself would sell a powerful set-top box for $ 300 and allow its partners to produce their own consoles for SteamOS, but at the same time rely on some kind of standard for hardware. In general, we may be able to find out about the “even better” option on Wednesday, and then we will learn about the hardware requirements of SteamOS. If you recall the earlier statements, then at CES Valve said that its plans were supported by about 20 companies engaged in the production of "iron".
The article is based on materials .
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