Google Ending Steam for Chromebook Support in 2026 (9to5google.com)
(Friday August 08, 2025 @05:22PM (msmash)
from the google-graveyard dept.)
- Reference: 0178615966
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/08/08/1719205/google-ending-steam-for-chromebook-support-in-2026
- Source link: https://9to5google.com/2025/08/07/steam-chromebook-2026/
Google will discontinue Steam for Chromebook Beta on January 1, 2026, [1]removing all installed games from devices after that date . The beta [2]launched in March 2022 as an alpha before expanding to [3]beta status in November 2022 with reduced hardware requirements of Intel Core i3 or AMD Ryzen 3 processors and 8GB RAM. The program never progressed beyond beta testing despite supporting 99 compatible Linux-based titles through its three-year run.
[1] https://9to5google.com/2025/08/07/steam-chromebook-2026/
[2] https://games.slashdot.org/story/22/03/15/2224208/google-casually-announces-steam-for-chrome-os-is-coming-in-alpha-for-select-chromebooks
[3] https://it.slashdot.org/story/22/11/03/190245/steam-on-chromebooks-enters-beta-adds-amd-support
[1] https://9to5google.com/2025/08/07/steam-chromebook-2026/
[2] https://games.slashdot.org/story/22/03/15/2224208/google-casually-announces-steam-for-chrome-os-is-coming-in-alpha-for-select-chromebooks
[3] https://it.slashdot.org/story/22/11/03/190245/steam-on-chromebooks-enters-beta-adds-amd-support
Oh No! (Score:3)
by kenh ( 9056 )
> The beta launched in March 2022 as an alpha before expanding to beta status in November 2022
Say it isn't so - Google is cancelling a 3 year-old beta offering? Unbelievable!
fuck google (Score:1)
by invisiblefireball ( 10371234 )
google needs to die as soon as possible, greedy evil shitheads
Wrong tool for the job anyway (Score:4, Interesting)
The other day on Reddit I saw someone post (and later deleted) that they were towing a 18' fiberglass boat with their Chevy Bolt. For context, the car does not have a tow rating . Gaming on a Chromebook is kind of like that. You can technically do it, but... it's not going to do it well, and you probably shouldn't.
Unless "gaming" means playing things like match-3 games and Minecraft with all the settings bottomed out. Which to bring back around to the car analogy, would be like me saying I found a practical way to haul around a "boat" with my Bolt by throwing an inflatable raft in the trunk.
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, Google was starting to segment chromebooks in various categories, and "gaming" was one of them where they would have a decent GPU. This was because many of the SoC powered chromebooks had a decent GPU in them that was way more than what you need for a web browser and video decoding.
Steam was thought of as a way to use some of the increasing GPU power available to chromebooks. These days, it's running the Android environment - Android apps pretty much all require using the GPU nowadays. And the And
Re: (Score:2)
What OS does Google use internally?
Because if you wanted to 'dog-food' you'd sternly encourage pretty much every employee to use Chrome OS, hence the Linux and Android containers, with the option to spin up a virtualized container for specialty work, including Windows 11 (whose support someone unofficially demoed on a Pixel phone.)
Steam OS then seemed like a perk for their employees but it's built on Wine, so as an incentive to get whatever Windows apps the company uses running sans W11.