Google Silently Announces Steam Alpha For Select Chromebooks

Google’s Chrome OS platform has witnessed massive growth in the last few years. Because of the global lockdown caused by this pandemic Chromebook sold increased fourfold. Chromebooks, as well as Chrome OS, aren’t considered viable alternatives to Windows and macOS However, over the last couple of years Google is putting a substantial effort into making it more attractive.

It appears that Google is moving it one step further, having made the announcement yesterday at the Google for Games Developer Summit in which it announced that Steam Alpha “just launched” on certain Chromebooks. When the last time Google stated it was that Steam was coming to Chrome OS was in early 2020.

There are rumors of manufacturers who are planning to launch gaming-focused Chromebooks as well, and Google might be helping to lay the groundwork for this. The keynote also covers cloud gaming ( Stadia and GeForce Now), Android games, and a new Gaming Overlay which will be available to Chrome OS beta users soon.

In the most recent Chrome OS community post, Google stated, “As you may have already been informed, our team is working in partnership with Valve for the introduction of Steam on Chrome OS. We’re very pleased to announce that we’ll soon launch an alpha-quality, early Version of Steam in Chrome OS within the Dev channel for a tiny number of Chromebooks to be released very soon. Stay tuned to the forum to find out more details!”

Google did not reveal the specific Chromebooks that will run Steam, however, thanks to the people over at 9to5Google who examined the changes to code Below are the Chromebooks that could support Steam.

• Acer Chromebook 514 (CB514-1H)
• Acer Chromebook 515
• Acer Chromebook Spin 713 (CP713-3W)
• ASUS Chromebook Flip CX5 (CX5500)
• ASUS Chromebook CX9 (CX9400)
• HP Pro c640 G2 Chromebook

Are you thrilled about Steam finally arriving on Chromebooks? Tell us about it in the comment section below. In case you’re not familiar with Chromebooks here are a few of the advantages to thinking about Chromebooks over Windows.