If you’re any sort of gamer, you’ve almost certainly heard of Valve’s Steam platform. For the uninitiated, Steam is a gaming software solution for Windows, Mc OS, and Linux. Imagine an app store and gaming system in one. In September of 2013, Valve announced it was going to be an operating system as well. SteamOS is currently in beta and is meant to run on Steam Machines, systems a bit more advanced than the Steam Box seen above.
One might scoff at someone trying to stick a new operating system into the already crowded market, but yesterday’s Steam press event shows that manufacturers are willing to get in line to be part of this. This may have to do with the dedicated gaming nature of the OS, but whatever the reason, 13 systems were announced yesterday. The cheapest are the $499 unit from CyberPowerPC and iBuyPower. The priciest is the $6,000 from Falcon Northwest, but loaded with 6 TB of storage and up to 16 GB of RAM, it’s not for casual gamers. I admit to being more partial to the lower-end solutions, especially CyberpowerPC’s, for no other reason than it looks like a gaming console.
With this much investment from manufacturers, will SteamOS capture the imagination of users? Or will it end up being faded mist?
Hearts and minds achievement unlocked.
The Xi3 Piston in the top picture is supposedly not a steam box. Its not running SteamOS though it could it is running Windows 7 or 8 with Valve’s Steam client.
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/xi3-piston-windows-gaming,news-18174.html