Valve Announces SteamOS

[Talolan]

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

Here are some highlights:

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.
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.

In-home Streaming
You can play all your Windows and Mac games on your SteamOS machine, too. Just 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!

Downloadable soon. Free forever!
SteamOS will be available soon as a free download for users and as a freely licensable operating system for manufacturers. Stay tuned in the coming days for more information.

As a long time Linux user, I'm all over this.

[Poxi]

Sounds great! Sometimes gaming resolution is lost in some bigger-screen TVs - other than that small issue it could be amazing!

Poxi

[Tundrra]

Sounds great! Sometimes gaming resolution is lost in some bigger-screen TVs - other than that small issue it could be amazing!

Poxi

I play on a 55" and a 42" and I don't think I have lost any resolution or performance, only wall space:p

[Talolan]

Today they announced that in 2014 multiple manufacture's will be selling officially licensed SteamMachines with SteamOS.

They also have a beta on steam for 300 people to beta test the Steam living room experience before the end of this year.

[Poxi]

Poxi wrote:
Sounds great! Sometimes gaming resolution is lost in some bigger-screen TVs - other than that small issue it could be amazing!

Poxi

I play on a 55" and a 42" and I don't think I have lost any resolution or performance, only wall space:p

I hooked my rig up to my 1080p flat panel via an HDMI cable for SWTOR and the resolution was horrible. I must not be doing it right

Poxi

[Talolan]

I have yet to play a PC game on a TV that didn't look better than a console game on a TV.

An MMO might look bad because of the UI elements not being designed for a 10-foot interface, but the gameplay should look much better than a console game on a TV.

[Runesire]

Interesting direction Steam is going with this.

I'm with Poxi in that I've tried connecting my gaming rig (and a Macbook Pro) to my 1080p 58" TV, but found the resolution to be poor.

Logistically, how do others set up a PC to play in a living room? In my house, our living room is usually in a condition just this side of Armageddon, with the kid's toys, laundry baskets, and lazy dog scattered across the floor and sofas. I can't realistically see a way to juggle a mouse and keyboard (and a beer!) in my chaos.

[Talolan]

Most of my PC games on TV are played with a GamePad.

I wouldn't play an MMO on a TV because of the UI setup.

[Tundrra]

Logistically, how do others set up a PC to play in a living room? In my house, our living room is usually in a condition just this side of Armageddon, with the kid's toys, laundry baskets, and lazy dog scattered across the floor and sofas. I can't realistically see a way to juggle a mouse and keyboard (and a beer!) in my chaos.

End table for the beer, crank the font size way UP:) I was using a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard, but the keyboard was having some issues so now I slide the tower a little closer to the couch and use a hardwired keyboard with a Bluetooth mouse. I also use one of those laptop lap desks for the keyboard and a over sized hard cover book and mouse pad for the mouse sitting next to me.

[Runesire]

Most of my PC games on TV are played with a GamePad.

I wouldn't play an MMO on a TV because of the UI setup.

Gotcha. I think it was WoW I tried it with. Since most of my PC gaming are MMO's, I think I'm stuck with my 3 24" monitor setup.