You can already play Android games on Chromebooks and in the cloud with Stadia. In the near future, however, the offer will be massively improved.
Chrome OS is set to become even more powerful and extensive in the foreseeable future, which may make it an even better alternative for Windows and macOS. This includes, for example, support for Steam. The gaming-focused platform has been in the works for Chromebooks for quite some time and may not be far off the launch.
Steam on Chromebooks: The first devices
There is now a list of devices that Steam will run on out of the box in the source code. But many Chromebooks aren’t. In any case, an Intel SoC of the 11th generation must be installed at least, of which there is only support for Core i5 and i7. Thus, not all variants of the discovered Chromebooks are compatible.
- 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
- But it also says that 10th Gen Core processors will be supported later. In any case, the list of devices is not yet finalized.
Steam on Chromebooks to Google I/O?
Google is said to now have firm schedules for Steam on Chrome OS internally. That reveals a comment from a developer, but without further details. A few weeks ago it also became known that Chrome OS will soon also support RGB keyboards. Gaming Chromebooks could therefore be the next big thing.
Last but not least, the source code shows that Steam and Google have brought another development partner on board with Nvidia. For future Chromebooks, there might even be a special GPU that can be used for Steam and similar applications but still fits easily into Chromebooks.