As the gaming industry prepares to launch into a new generation of hardware, games and software, a new competitor for the living room has emerged — and it’s revealed itself to be quite unlike anything seen before.

On Sept. 23, Valve revealed their current project, but it is not a game this time.

SteamOS, as the name suggests, is an operating system, and the first one made only for gamers. As seen on their website, SteamOS is completely free and will offer the highly successful Steam digital distribution service to more devices than just computers.

Steam’s Big Picture mode was Valve’s first step in making the platform more easily accessible for a gamer with a big screen and a controller. But even with Big Picture, a gamer still needed a computer to run Steam and output the video to their television.

With SteamOS and the Steam Machines announced two days later, Valve’s website states: “Finally, you don’t have to give up your favorite games, your online friends, and all the Steam features you love just to play on the big screen. SteamOS, running on any living room machine, will provide access to the best games and user-generated content available.”

The Machines that Valve mentions were revealed to be developed by third-party hardware manufacturers as well as Valve themselves. The company said that there will be a variety of different Machines available to buy and customize/upgrade, essentially bringing the personality of the PC to a console environment.

Valve also said that their own model, which they call nothing more than a “prototype,” will be shipping to a very select few beta testers this year, with a full release sometime next year alongside SteamOS.

The last of the three announcements that week was what Valve is calling the Steam Controller. In the images released, the controller can be seen to have a touchscreen and track pads in addition to the typical face buttons found on most other gaming input devices. Valve states that the track pads combine the usefulness of a controller with the precision of a computer mouse.

Since Valve is about developers and open-source, and the fact that SteamOS runs on Linux, the controller is fully hack-able.

Chris Fogerty, senior in computing engineering at Iowa State, is a member of the Game Development Club and an avid PC gaming fan. As a gamer and someone who develops games, SteamOS has been a blip on his radar ever since it was announced.

“At first there won’t be much of a market for games that are made just for SteamOS, as it’s not something people will just install on their home computers,” Fogerty said. “I feel like that will change quickly as hardware companies come out with their own SteamOS consoles starting next year, though.”

“As a developer, I’d like to get a game published through Steam Greenlight [a service for independent developers] at some point. If that goes through, I would definitely target SteamOS,” Fogerty said.

Despite the ambitious introduction of the service, Fogerty does not see SteamOS as being a major threat to current consoles — at least not yet.

“Most AAA games aren’t available for Linux at the moment, where as there are a lot of upcoming releases for the PS4, XBox One, and Windows,” Fogerty said. “I feel Steam Machines and SteamOS will start pulling developers if their sales are good. Basically, once the install base is there, games will be made for SteamOS/Linux.”

Fogerty plans on getting a Steam Machine at some point and is hopeful to be one of the 300 beta testers for Valve’s hardware.

“I haven’t decided if I want to build it myself or buy one from a manufacturer,” Fogerty said. “I really like that the Steam Machines and SteamOS are open hardware, open source.”

Overall, Fogerty considers the concept to be “brilliant.”

“Sure, there will be fierce competition, but that’s always been there. I’m really looking forward to messing around with SteamOS next year, and I’m excited to see what else Valve has in store,” Fogerty said.