Valve has went live with the first of three Steam-related announcements for the living room by introducing SteamOS – a free operating system built on the Linux kernel. It’s designed for TV and the living room, promising instant access to all Steam community features.

According to a blurb on the site, Valve says it has  “achieved significant performance increases in graphics processing” with SteamOS. Input latency is also being reduced. Additionally, game developers are already taking advantage of these gains and are targeting SteamOS for upcoming releases.

SteamOS isn’t just about games, though. Valve is competing with consoles on the multimedia front as well, with in-home steaming. It also plans to work with “many of the media services you know and love.” Netflix, anyone? Lastly, SteamOS will embrace the recently announced Family Sharing feature.

It all sounds very ambitious, but if anyone can pull it off, it’s Valve. The next announcement is set for Wednesday, two days from now.