For in-home streaming, Valve promises simplicity by allowing you to simply turn on an existing PC or Mac with Steam and start beaming games over WiFi to your TV. How your television will receive that signal is unclear, nor is it clear how controlling games would work in that scenario (would you have to be close enough to the PC for a wireless controller to work?). A digital receiver of some form may be the next part of this puzzle, but we've got no word of any hardware connected to SteamOS just yet.

In terms of media, Valve says it's working with "many of the media services you know and love" to bring access to various media services -- we're guessing that means stuff like Netflix and Hulu Plus -- though little specificity is offered on that front.

Family sharing and family options both offer accessibility for Steam to multiple household members, as well as the ability to restrict certain features or content to younger users. Specifically, users can " take turns playing one another's games while earning your own Steam achievements and saving your individual game progress to the Steam cloud." Family sharing is actually already in beta on Steam right this minute.

All four pillars that Valve speaks to are part of SteamOS, but they're also coming to the Steam client itself. The company repeatedly separates the two, which sounds like SteamOS is very much its own beast. Its also referred to as an evolving, open platform. "With SteamOS, 'openness' means that the hardware industry can iterate in the living room at a much faster pace than they've been able to. Content creators can connect directly to their customers. Users can alter or replace any part of the software or hardware they want. Gamers are empowered to join in the creation of the games they love," the announcement page reads.