Google wants to bring Steam support to Chromebooks

Google wants to give Chrome OS support for Steam. The Steam client for Linux would then run within the Linux subsystem, allowing users to run games on their Chromebooks via the Steam platform.

The Linux client can already run on Chrome OS via Crostini. At Crostini, a Linux distribution called Termina runs in a virtual machine on Chrome OS. Originally, this functionality was mainly intended for developers, but Google is bringing support to all Chromebooks and therefore wants to bring Steam to the platform as well. Kan Liu, head of product management for Chrome OS, told Android Police.

Liu didn’t give details yet, but he expressed optimism that the project was feasible, partly because of the trend of cross-platform support for games and techniques like Vulkan to make this possible. To make the arrival of Steam to Chrome OS systems a success, it seems necessary, among other things, that those systems will have more powerful graphics hardware and, conversely, Crostini will have to offer hardware acceleration of graphics.

It is unclear to what extent Valve is participating in the project. Valve has been committed to improving the development of Linux support for games for years. The company tried to offer its own platform with its Linux-based Steam OS, but development seems to have been put on the back burner due to lack of success. Among other things, a shortage of good games proved to be a stumbling block to success.

Source: Lifewire