Pressure on Microsoft
Microsoft has always had competitors, of course, but of late it seems that it's fighting a war on multiple fronts - and the latest firm to take on the Windows PC is Valve, whose name is synonymous with PC gaming.
Not any more. This week Valve announced SteamOS, which brings the Steam games platform to anyone who wants it. It's a standalone operating system based on Linux, and Valve says it'll run on "any living room machine."
Those machines include Valve's own Steam Boxes, although it's currently not obvious whether it'll build them or just set the spec for others to assemble.
As Alex Roth explains, the plan is clear: "Give PC gaming the ease and accessibility that console jockeys already enjoy, and do so in a way that lets OEMs make the hardware and compete. And put Steam right at the centre of it, ready to vacuum up the cash like it's the Steam summer sale all year long." Prototypes will ship later this year.
That's not all Valve has up its sleeve: it'll make a third Steam-related announcement on Friday afternoon.
Half-Life 3 fans are crossing everything that can conceivably be crossed in the hope of a Half-Life 3 reveal, but multiple sources suggest it'll be a new controller instead. Could this be the biometric controller Valve's Gabe Newell mentioned back in January? Only a few more hours until we find out.
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