Valve, which runs the successful gaming marketplace Steam, announced a Linux-based operating system called SteamOS on Monday, which lets you stream Windows and Mac video games from your computer to a TV.
Steam OS will be offered as a free standalone operating system "soon" and is a part of Steam's larger effort to extend the PC gaming experience to the living room. Major game developers are already signed on and will run on SteamOS starting in 2014, the company said.
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"Finally, you don’t have to give up your favorite games, your online friends, and all the Steam features you love just to play on the big screen," Valve posted on its website. "SteamOS, running on any living room machine, will provide access to the best games and user-generated content available."
Steam Box is expected to run on SteamOS, which is rumored to launch later this week. The Steam Box would be Valve's first foray into hardware, but some believe Steam Box is not in the works at all. Valve has two other major announcements coming this week, though, so we'll have to sit tight and see.
This quote on the company's site might also hint a Steam Box might not see the light of day anytime soon:
“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."
The company said it is working with other media services as well, so users will be able to access music and video with Steam and SteamOS in the future.
Image: Valve