In a nutshell: Mistakes happen to the best of us. Unfortunately, they get amplified when you are under the public spotlight as Google's Greg Hartrell recently experienced. In this instance, it wasn't too big of a slip up and shouldn't get anyone fired.
During the Google for Games Developer Summit keynote, Hartrell said the Steam alpha just launched for Chrome OS, making the longtime PC game store available on select Chromebooks. The executive, who serves as product director for games on Play/Android, said users could learn more about it on the Chromebook community forum.
The issue is that Hartrell misspoke, and the Steam alpha hadn't actually launched.
In a follow-up post on the Chromebook forum, a Google representative said the Steam alpha for Chrome OS would be available to a small set of Chromebooks "soon." Interested parties were encouraged to check back later for additional information.
Google must have been off its game yesterday as the keynote also introduced Hartrell by misspelling his last name.
Steam for Chromebooks has been a long time in the making, and nothing much has come of the project - at least, not publicly. Last month, however, 9to5Google discovered a code change accompanied by an initial list of supported Chromebooks including models from Acer, Asus, HP and Lenovo.
The code further suggested minimum hardware requirements of an 11th gen Intel Core i5 or i7 processor and at least 7GB of RAM. If true, that would eliminate most lower-end Chromebooks from consideration. Given the requirements of some Steam games, we wouldn't be surprised if the guidance proves accurate.
Image credit Artin Bakhan