LONDON: Video games developer and publisher Valve has reportedly announced SteamOS, which is expected to bring PC gaming into the living room and potentially disrupt the gaming market dominated by PlayStation, Xbox and Wii.
The OS code will be made freely available for manufacturers who want to launch their own gaming hardware and the company is anticipated to launch its own machine to run on the OS, believed to be called the Stream Box.
According to the BBC, Valve has outlined its plans for the Linux-based operating system that will be available for download soon.
Computer and Video Games’ associate editor Rob Crossley said that Valve is a very successful growing company within a market that is shrinking as the PC sales are falling but Valve knows that it needs to provide the same services on different devices, and the living room is the best next step for them.
Valve’s co-founder, Gabe Newell in his speech last week envisioned an environment where gaming moves with the user, whether they are playing at their PC, in their living room or on the move.
He had said that the fragmentation around the physical location or around the input devices in terms of computation is not necessary or desirable for software developers or consumers, hinting towards the ‘games on the move’ approach.
Piers Harding-Rolls, from IHS Screen Digest, said that Valve’s Steam Box could be a highly disruptive force to the gaming market dominated by Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, the report added.
source : Times of India
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