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Valve testing homegrown music player for SteamOS

Valve testing homegrown music player for SteamOS

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Valve's testing out a new jukebox for SteamOS that lets gamers play and manage their music on the fly. Beta users can link up whatever local folder they have music stored on, and those artists and albums will be displayed in both Big Picture mode and within SteamOS. And similar to Steam's existing social features, Valve's set it up so that users can jump into the player controls mid-game, with options to hop through playlists or individual tracks.

Beta testers chosen by random

Such a feature might seem trivial for longtime PC and console gamers, who have been able to run music alongside games for years, but SteamOS is still very much a work in progress. In a note to users, the company says this latest beta is the start of "what we believe to be the most fundamental set of features to offer a great music listening experience within Steam." In the meantime, that greatness is limited to MP3s, though Valve says that limitation will "change over time."

Valve announced plans to expand SteamOS to play back music and videos at its Steam Dev Days event last month. This new rollout is not for everyone though; existing Steam users need to join Valve's Steam Music community before they're randomly selected to test out the new feature.