Both Steam Machine and Steam Controller projects have been delayed, while Steam OS keeps growing and getting better: let's see how.


Steam OS, the Debian based gaming environment that Valve is developing, keeps on growing. It's based on 7.1 version, known as "Wheezy", but it's already using a few packages from versione 7.5, allowing to fix a few problems with Big Picture environment, about flickering and black screens.

As far as drivers are concerned, Valve will use external repositories, and it's using Kernel Linux 3.10.11 at the moment. The base configuration needed to use Steam OS changed too: you now need an Intel or AMD 64-bit processor, 4GB of RAM, 25GB of internal memory, an AMD or Nvidia or Intel graphics card, other than a USB or an optical reader to install the OS.

Furthermore, we have a great news for player. The Steam OS game library, and the Steam game library of titles that are compatible with Linux, is up to 600 titles. We would have never guessed, just a few years ago, to see so many titles on a Linux based OS. Valve is planning on expanding this library up to 1000 titles by the end of the year.

Triple A titles are still missing from the list, but there a few interesting names like: Half Life 2, The Witcher 2, Gary's mod, Civilization V, Left for Dead 2, Dota 2, Mark of the Ninja, Portal 2, Dungeon Defender Eternity, and the well known blockbuster Goat Simulator. In the near future we could expect titles like Project Cars and The Witcher 3.

Looks like Valve is on the right path to offer a gaming solution for those who don't like to use Microsoft or Apple, but we still need to see how the market will react after Steam OS is released (besides the consoles and gamepad projects).




Source: Le Comptoir du Hardware.