Chrome OS May Finally Get Official Steam Support

At the moment, if you're looking to play games on Chrome OS, you're more or less limited to finding those games on the Google Play Store. That may all be changing at some point in the near future, as Google has suggested that it's working with Valve to build official Steam support for Chrome OS. This, of course, would greatly expand the gaming capabilities of Chromebooks by allowing them to tap into Steam's vast library of PC titles.

Granted, even with official Steam support, you'd still be limited by what your Chromebook's hardware can actually run, so don't expect a future where you're playing high-end PC games on your Chromebook. With that being said, building Steam support into Chrome OS could still unlock a lot of potential for Chromebook owners looking to play some games, as Steam is home to many retro and indie games that don't need serious hardware to run.

At CES, Android Police spoke to Kan Liu, who serves as Google's director of product management for Chrome OS. While Liu seemed to confirm that Google is indeed working to bring Steam to Chrome OS (noting that it will tap into the operating system's Linux compatibility), he didn't outright say that Google is working with Valve to accomplish this.

Liu also didn't say when we'd see Steam support in Chrome OS, leading Android Police to suggest that it may not be a sure thing yet. Still, with Liu telling Android Police that games are the most popular Google Play Store downloads among Chromebook users, moving to get official support for Steam up and running on Chrome OS seems like a logical step.

Of course, if Steam support does one day go live, consumers may want more powerful Chromebooks, and Liu said that those are coming as well. While you can already run Steam for Linux on Chromebooks, official support would make the experience of doing so a much more stable one. It sounds like a lot of pieces need to fall into place before this happens, though, so it could be a long time before we see more development on this front. We'll see what happens from here, and we'll let you know if Google makes any big moves regarding Steam.