Valve Announces SteamOS Operating System, Will Be Free to Download, Steam Box May Be Next

With the first of Valve's previously teased series of important announcements for gamers coming out on Sept. 23, the company has declared the launch of SteamOS, a new Linux-based operating system that will be released for free. As Valve states in its announcement for SteamOS:

"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."

Valve revealed that the company already has distributed the operating system to game developers and will soon announce titles that will be available for devices that can run SteamOS. Valve also discussed how the company has used SteamOS to help improve the overall quality of games that will be available on the operating system:

"In SteamOS, we have achieved significant performance increases in graphics processing, and we're now targeting audio performance and reductions in input latency at the operating system level. Game developers are already taking advantage of these gains as they target SteamOS for their new releases."

Valve discussed four new features that will be part of SteamOS in the announcement. In-home streaming will allow games on the operating system on a computer to stream on a television. Also, family sharing will allow multiple players to use one Steam account and get their own achievements and progress through games. "Many of the media services you know and love" were teased for the operating system, though none were specifically mentioned as appearing on SteamOS. Finally, Family Options was teased as a means to block content to certain users by denying children access.

SteamOS is designed for devices for the living room and not just PCs, indicating that Valve may be ready to finally officially reveal the so-called Steam Box home console to the public. The rumored device seems perfect for SteamOS, and could pave the way for Steam to jump from a PC-centered service to the home console market in the near future. Perhaps soon gamers will be able to use SteamOS with the Steam Box to play Left 4 Dead 3 and Half-Life 3 on their televisions.