The 2022 Google for Games Developer Summit officially commenced today. As usual, Google gave its keynote address to mark the opening of the summit. However, this was not a regular keynote speech as the company had quite a few announcements to make. The company officially announced the Play As You Download feature to all Android 12 users. However, the announcement that took everyone by surprise is the arrival of Steam Alpha on Chrome OS.
According to Google, the popularity of gaming on Chrome OS is consistently increasing. The company reveals during its presentation that “games led Android usage up 50% YoY”. Furthermore, the presentation slide quietly introduces Steam Alpha. Google announced that Steam for Chrome OS is now available in an Alpha program. Unfortunately, the company did not reveal any more information about the launch.
As of now, we can not tell the Chromebooks that will support this program. In fact, we can not even ascertain if this program is available as of today. All we know is that it is official and if it’s not available, it’s coming pretty soon.
Gizchina News of the week
Steam Alpha on Chrome OS previous speculations
According to previous speculations, not all devices will be compatible with playing Steam games on Chrome OS. The reports claim that there will be a minimum spec required for a device to support Steam games on Chrome OS. You will need to have no less than 7 GB of RAM and your processor should not be less than Intel’s 11th-gen Core i5 or Core i7 processor, and at least 7GB of RAM. From the requirements above, it is clear that a lot of pretty decent Chromebooks will not be part of the fun. If you really what to enjoy your Steam titles, you may have to get more powerful Chromebooks.
Below is a speculated list of the first set of Chromebooks that will support Steam Alpha
- Volta – Acer Chromebook 514 (CB514-1H)
- Volet – Acer Chromebook 515
- Voxel – Acer Chromebook Spin 713 (CP713-3W)
- Delbin – ASUS Chromebook Flip CX5 (CX5500)
- Drobit – ASUS Chromebook CX9 (CX9400)
- Elemi – HP Pro c640 G2 Chromebook
- Lindar – Unknown/unreleased Chromebook from Lenovo
It appears that Google is still working on this feature because its reference is not even ready. At the presentation, Google told potential users to refer to a post on the Chromebook Community Forums. However, as of the time of writing this article, the post is not available. We expect the company to make the information available as soon as possible. On our part, we will release an update once there is more information.
