Friday, December 6th 2024
Valve Prepares for SteamOS Expansion, Issues Guidelines for "Powered by SteamOS" Branding
Valve's headquarters is cooking something big, as the company has unveiled new branding guidelines for "Powered by SteamOS" as it prepares to expand SteamOS support for third-party handhelds and PCs. The branding guidelines include various cases. First in line is for games, which can carry a "Steam" logotype, showing that the game is available and runs on Steam. Next up is the "Steam Included" logo, which officially certifies that a hardware product comes with the Steam client pre-installed. To display this logo, manufacturers must comply with Valve's Steam Client Distribution Agreement and integrate the Steam client in its approved form—either as a bootloader or fully compiled software. What we are most interested in is the "Powered by SteamOS" logo, which certifies that a hardware device runs SteamOS as its primary operating system and launches directly into SteamOS when powered on, requiring hardware manufacturers and partners to use the official Steam system image either provided directly by Valve or developed in close partnership with Valve.
The "Steam Compatible" logo certifies that a third-party input peripheral has been reviewed by Valve and meets their established compatibility criteria for use with Steam on PCs, with manufacturers receiving licensing rights after Valve's verification of the device's implementation. Finally, the "Steam Play Here" logo identifies brick-and-mortar establishments with access to Steam games through the Steam PC Café Server, including commercial PC cafés, university computer labs, libraries, and trade shows, allowing these locations to promote their Steam gaming capabilities through window displays and interior signage, with all participating venues required to operate under the official Steam PC Café system guidelines.
All of these branding guidelines are coming in at an interesting time, when Valve is trying to keep its Steam Machine dream alive. Recent SteamOS 3.6.19 update notably included expanded support for competitors' hardware, such as additional ROG Ally keys and various third-party controllers like the ASUS ROG Raikiri Pro and Machenike G5 Pro. This will allow more hardware makers to join SteamOS handheld PCs and drive more developers to the SteamOS platform for games and optimizations. We can't wait to see what comes out next, so stay tuned as we follow the adventure.
Sources:
Steam, via Tom's Hardware
The "Steam Compatible" logo certifies that a third-party input peripheral has been reviewed by Valve and meets their established compatibility criteria for use with Steam on PCs, with manufacturers receiving licensing rights after Valve's verification of the device's implementation. Finally, the "Steam Play Here" logo identifies brick-and-mortar establishments with access to Steam games through the Steam PC Café Server, including commercial PC cafés, university computer labs, libraries, and trade shows, allowing these locations to promote their Steam gaming capabilities through window displays and interior signage, with all participating venues required to operate under the official Steam PC Café system guidelines.
37 Comments on Valve Prepares for SteamOS Expansion, Issues Guidelines for "Powered by SteamOS" Branding
Microsoft AI spyware is getting out of hand.
In time they could easily lose gamers to Steam OS, most of whom only tolerate their telemetry infested bloatware for the purposes of gaming and would quite happily ditch Windows if they could.
The only real concern I have is compatibility issues with a lot of older titles I play.
Peeling of stickers of new devices will be soon a new profession in tech outlets.
Intel inside / intel i7 / nvidia / amd / nvidia geforce / hdmi / dp / 1080P / full-hd / freesync / gsync / usb-c / ... ... ...No
Playstation / Xbox / those small rip off handhelds with the pirate copy of 50.000 games / nintendo switch / all those android games which play fine on android tables and smartphones
But the majority of gamers still doesn't see Linux as a relevant alternative, unfortunately.
You'll own nothing.
Windows is heading more towards you not owning your PC or the OS install on your system with forced updates & features that you can't remove easily like copilot.
When valve can manage to get their label on more hardware which is valve operating system verified - there may be a chance that it will work on any "linux" distribution.
We are talking about the future - there are no facts.
I hope valve will give support for hardware for the linux kernel.
Years ago valve steam os was a relabelled Gnu arch linux. Linux is the kernel. The other stuff is than from different projects and than "glued togehter" by e.g. Arch linux, gentoo linux, linux mint, debian, slackware, ....
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I do read datasheets for mainboards, graphic cards, ssds and other computer parts. Most often the operating system support is only "windows 11".
Linux is great for development, and the only development OS for me. If the client or employer wants me to develop software on Windows I immediately start looking for another job. Everyone trying to get Argo Workflows to work on Windows machine based on their documentation alone, knows exactly what I'm talking about.
But why would I want to game on Linux? Well, for the same reason people buy Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo hardware. Exclusive titles. Everyone's doing it. You want audience on XBOX? You try to get more exclusive and better games on your platform. Want people to game on Sony system? Well, then you have either exclusives or timed exclusives or whatever souls like title is next being kept away from PC audience. Want people on Nintendo system? Just send in the plumber, his cheating princess girlfriend and the poor lizard boyfriend who can't have privacy in his multitude of castles. Everyone gets it. Except for Valve.