Despite the debates and scuffles about where gaming is headed including the like/dislike ratio of game-as-a-service and cloud gaming in general, it seems that Google, Microsoft, Nvidia and Amazon found another member of this selective club.
It has been known for months that Valve was working with Google to have Chromebooks or computers with ChromeOS to gain the ability to let users on the go access their game library.
This week, Google finally opened the gate with an Alpha testing for Steam on Chrome and for the moment, the participant Chromebooks are:
- Acer Chromebook 514 (CB514-1W)
- Acer Chromebook 515 (CB515-1W)
- Acer Chromebook Spin 713 (CP713-3W)
- ASUS Chromebook Flip CX5 (CX5500)
- ASUS Chromebook CX9 (CX9400)
- HP Pro c640 G2 Chromebook
- Lenovo 5i-14 Chromebook
For the time being, two known issues are warned and one is that devices with 8GB of RAM may encounter issues in games that require 6GB of RAM or more and the other one, there is a known issue where devices with display resolutions greater than 1080p may encounter performance and scaling issues.
Which hints that Steam on Chrome when become stable, will be only for high-end or mid to high-end Chromebooks.