Valve had left us with only this teaser page over the weekend alluding to today's announcement. They have now revealed Steam OS, which will combine Linux with a gaming experience built for the big screen.

As we’ve been working on bringing Steam to the living room, we’ve come to the conclusion that the environment best suited to delivering value to customers is an operating system built around Steam itself. SteamOS combines the rock-solid architecture of Linux with a gaming experience built for the big screen. It will be available soon as a free stand-alone operating system for living room machines.

What does a feline, a gaming pad, and Steam have in common? Likely nothing, unless you count the feline standing in front of your monitor, but Valve left us to contemplate their teaser page this weekend. Stay tuned on Monday around 10am Pacific (1pm Eastern) for more of what appears to be a three-part mystery to be revealed!

Last year, we shipped a software feature called Big Picture, a user-interface tailored for televisions and gamepads. This year we’ve been working on even more ways to connect the dots for customers who want Steam in the living-room. Soon, we’ll be adding you to our design process, so that you can help us shape the future of Steam.

Valve announced today that they will soon be launching a Steam Family Sharing service. This feature will allow close friends and families to share their library of Steam games. It will first be available in limited beta next week.

Steam Family Sharing will allow friends and family to play each other's games while earning their own Steam achievements, as well as storing their own save files and application data to the Steam cloud. To enable this feature players simply need to authorize a shared computer. Once the device is authorized, the lender's library of games will be available to access, download, and play. Simultaneous usage of an account's library is not permitted under this feature; the lender will have access to play their games at any given time. If the lender begins playing a game while a friend or family member is borrowing it, they borrower will be given a few minutes to either purchase the game or cease playing until the lender is done.

"Our customers have expressed a desire to share their digital games among friends and family members, just as current retail games, books, DVDs, and other physical media can be shared," explained Anna Sweet of Valve. "Family Sharing was created in direct response to these user requests."

For more information about Steam Family Sharing and the beta program, please visit http://store.steampowered.com/sharing.

Ann "Cyliena" Hosler, Managing Editor

Follow me on Twitter: @Cyliena

When Gabe Newell talks, he almost always has something interesting to say. It was no different for the Valve co-founder this weekend at the Spike's VGA Awards. How does a Steam "console" for your living room sound?

If you're like me you might enjoy playing non MMO titles such as Left 4 Dead, Bioshock and Team Fortress 2. I find it extremely convienent to buy said games through Steam, which I can then download, and play through the Steam client. Well, imagine my surprise when I loaded Steam this morning to find some new products available for purchase: EverQuest, EverQuest II, Pirates of the Burning Sea and Vanguard! This is great news for existing players because you can most certainly count on an influx of players giving your favorite MMO a try!

"We are always looking for additional ways to introduce our great catalog of games to new audiences. It's hard to think of a larger group of PC gamers interested in multiplayer games than those connecting to Steam," said John Smedley, president of SOE. "We've long been a leader in MMOs and this agreement will help bring our exciting content to millions of additional online gamers around the world."

While Sony left out a title that I think would do great on Steam *cough* Planetside *cough*, I'm sure they will add more titles down the road. For now, the products available on Steam are listed below.

• EverQuest
• EverQuest: Seeds of Destruction
• EverQuest II
• EverQuest II: The Shadow Odyssey
• Pirates of the Burning Sea
• Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

For more details, visit the Steam Store.