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Report: Steam's TV-friendly Big Picture Mode to Beta This Week

Post by Dan @ 11:58am 10/09/12 | 12 Comments

A recent report on Valve by The New York Times casually mentions that "Big Picture" --the long-promised television-friendly interface for the popular Steam client-- will supposedly kick off public testing this week.

On Monday, the company will begin a public test of a new television-friendly interface, Big Picture, for buying Steam games and playing them on computers in the living room.

Its uncertain if Big Picture will offer large-fonted, controller-navigated access to all of the features that desktop gamers currently enjoy in Steam, but its overview page on Steamworks explains that developers need only to ensure their game works with a controller --although players will still be able to switch between keyboard and mouse.

If the reports are true, I guess we'll be able to find out more tomorrow.

steam

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carson
Posted 02:50pm 10/9/12

Hot shit. I have been using steam a lot through tv to play games with the missus. So should be good.

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Dazhel
Posted 03:08pm 10/9/12

No, no. Valve is not looking to make a Linux based Steam hardware console. Not at all.

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fpot
Posted 10:12pm 10/9/12

I have been trying to find a mod for The Witcher that makes the text in it a bit bigger and easier to read. Will this actually be altering the GUIs of games?

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Midda
Posted 11:25pm 10/9/12

This will be good, it's annoying having to get up from my lounge to walk into my room to operate Steam.

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Beezwax
Posted 11:26pm 10/9/12

exactly what I though Dazhel

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Nerfy
Posted 02:39am 11/9/12

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dais
Posted 08:50am 11/9/12

It looks a lot like XBox Live.

I've updated and I don't have the Big Picture button in the top right corner. Is it only there when you use it on your TV?

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eski
Posted 10:12am 11/9/12

Pretty cool, I do a lot of couch/controller gaming so I can see myself using this a lot.

Agree with dais, looks a lot more like xbox live than xbmc or psn.

(the button was in the top right corner of the steam window after I updated, it appeared on my PC monitor before I switched it to projector.)

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kettels
Posted 10:10am 11/9/12

It's pretty cool, had a play around with it this morning. It will really make playing on the TV so much easier. If want to get into it you need to go to steam-> settings -> beta and change to use steam beta

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Beezwax
Posted 10:45am 11/9/12

has that method of typing with a control been used on any console before this? ive only seen the keyboard layout. seems very clever

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Mantorok
Posted 11:12am 11/9/12

It looks a lot like XBox Live.

I've updated and I don't have the Big Picture button in the top right corner. Is it only there when you use it on your TV?

It's a beta, you have to opt-in via Steam's settings.

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