Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Valve: Steam wants on the big screen in the living room - Times Online

The games platform Steam will grow into a complete operating system. Valve developer wants to create its own ecosystem and make Sony and Microsoft competitors.

class=”articlemeta-date”> 24 September 2013

The games platform Steam has far-reaching plans.

The Games Steam platform has far-reaching plans. | © Screenshot / TIME ONLINE

Time to Christmas 2013 is actually already painful enough for gaming fans. When composing the wishlist they are facing pioneering decisions because both Sony and Microsoft have announced for November reissues of their consoles. If games fans thought they would now be between the Playstation 4 and the Xbox one decide one option is still to come: Steam

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Steam is a software, a gaming platform so far is running either on a PC or on the Mac. More than 50 million customers they currently use to it to buy video games to download and play. Valves million hits in portfolio are as Counter Strike and Half-Life 2 . In addition, gamers around the globe are using Steam in contact, to discuss games and gamble together.

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The experience of this entertainment world wants the developers of Steam, Valve, the company is now expanding. Shortly they will bring their own Steam operating system on the market. Steam OS it is hot and based on the open source operating system Linux – a message that certainly added to the Valve Industry in the excitement. Because with Steam OS could grow a new type consoles.

had a lot of power. Steam is the largest and most important platform for the distribution of games, even if Electronic Arts reports a steady user growth and its competitive platform Origin has also says that it already reached the threshold of 50 million registered users. Steam OS is available for download free of charge and be optimized for use on large screens. “With SteamOS we have achieved substantial performance improvements in the graphical processing and we plan to do so now for the audio performance and reductions in input lag on the operating system level” promises Valve.

A play on many devices

Steam OS is above all a strategically important step. Steam OS could run on a particular laptop, as well as on a new, cheap no-name console. This creates an ecosystem for gaming and another for a new competitor in the battle for the user or a special part of her life: her living room. Succeeds Steam OS would be in addition to the Playstation Network from Sony, including the streaming platform Gaikai, next to the Xbox platform from Microsoft, the Apple AppStore and the Google Play Store.

you came up with the idea to Steam OS, it says on the website of Steam, “while we have been working to make Steam available in the living room.” How it would look in practice, illustrates about the new feature in-home screening. To play a game, the user restarts his computer as before, on the run instead of Windows or OS X in the future, then Steam OS. The advantage over the home network, the game can be transferred to the big screen TV. Even music and videos can be played on Steam, family members should their games “share” each other and can alternately use. And of course to games can be used on all classes of devices such as smartphones, tablets, desktops, and TV time.

that Valve wants to make this possible, by developing its own hardware, has been known for some time. So far, however, many observers typed on a steam box, in the console and PC merge into a set-top box.

Whether

Steam adheres to this concept, should show up on Wednesday. For the evening, Valve has announced a new release. On a relevant website three icons appear: the first represents a cycle, so just the Steam ecosystem is meant. The next shows a circle in square brackets: Steam on a special device, perhaps even on different with different prices? Step three is entirely puzzling: circle plus circle. Whether behind the announcement of further software hides, perhaps the announcement of the much anticipated Half-Life 3 ?

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