In a highly anticipated announcement, the creator of the Half Life series and Steam gaming portal details its strategy for dominating the living room with a Linux-based OS designed for televisions.
September 23, 2013 10:57 AM PDT
(Credit: Screenshot by Nick Statt/CNET)
Game developer and digital distributor Valve has already seen massive success with its Steam portal -- so much so that it is wrapping that software up in its own Linux-based operating system, called SteamOS and designed for televisions. The goal: dethrone the home console kings in favor of a PC ecosystem.
"As we've been working on bringing Steam to the living room, we've come to the conclusion that the environment best suited to delivering value to customers is an operating system built around Steam itself," Valve says on its official SteamOS page. "SteamOS combines the rock-solid architecture of Linux with a gaming experience built for the big screen. It will be available soon as a free stand-alone operating system for living room machines."
The move to make its software free and licensable by anyone is a pivotal move in the company's power grab for the living room, which started well over a year ago with rumors that Valve was designing its very own PC-console hybrid dubbed the Steam Box.
Those efforts hit high marks at CES in January when Valve mysteriously unveiled prototypes of such a machine and met with hardware partners. Meanwhile, Valve founder and CEO Gabe Newell has been vocal about his plans to make the jump to the big screen and about the competition he sees in mobile gaming-focused companies like Apple.
Along the way, however, Newell handed down scores of layoffs, restructuring Valve for this moment. One such high-profile firing was Jeri Ellsworth, a designer of Steam Box-supported game controllers. Employees referred to these decisions as a
September 23, 2013 10:57 AM PDT
Game developer and digital distributor Valve has already seen massive success with its Steam portal -- so much so that it is wrapping that software up in its own Linux-based operating system, called SteamOS and designed for televisions. The goal: dethrone the home console kings in favor of a PC ecosystem.
"As we've been working on bringing Steam to the living room, we've come to the conclusion that the environment best suited to delivering value to customers is an operating system built around Steam itself," Valve says on its official SteamOS page. "SteamOS combines the rock-solid architecture of Linux with a gaming experience built for the big screen. It will be available soon as a free stand-alone operating system for living room machines."
The move to make its software free and licensable by anyone is a pivotal move in the company's power grab for the living room, which started well over a year ago with rumors that Valve was designing its very own PC-console hybrid dubbed the Steam Box.
Those efforts hit high marks at CES in January when Valve mysteriously unveiled prototypes of such a machine and met with hardware partners. Meanwhile, Valve founder and CEO Gabe Newell has been vocal about his plans to make the jump to the big screen and about the competition he sees in mobile gaming-focused companies like Apple.
Along the way, however, Newell handed down scores of layoffs, restructuring Valve for this moment. One such high-profile firing was Jeri Ellsworth, a designer of Steam Box-supported game controllers. Employees referred to these decisions as a