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the same hardware. This is because Valve can modify the source of the OS
to suit its needs. Since SteamOS's intention is to act as a Steam client con-
tainer for game playing, it doesn't need to make a general-purpose OS.
Ultimately, Valve is hoping to democratize the living-room gaming set-top box
with SteamOS and compete against companies like Microsoft, Sony, and
Nintendo. Rather than having a single company provide the hardware and
entertainment-optimized OS, Valve is taking a page from Microsoft's playbook
by providing the software reference platform to hardware manufacturers.
Unlike Microsoft, though, Valve is giving the OS away for free and hoping that
more devices running SteamOS will mean more customers using and buying
software from the Steam distribution service. Dubbed Steamboxes, these set-
top boxes running SteamOS are essentially variants of the type of computer
we built in this topic. As you can imagine, the cost of our PC is quite a bit
more than a PS4 or Xbox One, which will continue to be a challenge for
SteamOS's adoption.
In the meantime, SteamOS will be an interesting experiment that expands
the role of Linux beyond the mobile and desktop space. If all you want to do
is play games on your PC and are not interested in paying for a commercial
operating system like Windows, SteamOS may be just what you're looking
for.
Figure 74—This battle station is fully operational.
