Valve had surprised the world last week by announcing that Steam Big Picture would be coming to televisions around the world ‘soon’. Just a few days after this announcement, they’ve clarified on just how ‘soon’ this was – and hold onto your TF2 hats, because Big Picture will be opening up to Steam-using members of the public September 10th.
If you’re wondering what Big Picture even is, think of it as Steam built for the television. Its graphical interface is designed for ease-of-use via controller, and its been formatted to display as best it can on HDTV sets. For now, the idea is that Big Picture will make things easier for gamers who want to play their favorites on the family’s 50 inch plasma instead of their 17 inch bedroom monitor. If this is something that interests you, it may be a good idea to open up Steam tomorrow to see if you can access the beta.
Valve hasn’t stated whether Monday will bring gamers an open beta or a closed invitation system, but their foray into the living room is a long-awaited gesture that will undoubtedly have some kinks to work out. The company hasn’t stated a timeframe on when they think Big Picture will be ready for its final release, but the next few weeks will be an important test-run for the product.
The company denied that they were working on any of their own next-generation console technology earlier this year, but then proceeded to begin working on wearable hardware sets for their games. Whether the Big Picture is simply intended to bring the Steam platform to a bigger screen, or potentially lay down the tracks for an eventual Steam console, remains to be seen. Either way, we’re excited at the thought of having a better system in place when we want to play with our gravity guns on a glorious flatscreen television.
We’ll keep you posted as more news about Steam Big Picture comes out.
What do you think about Steam Big Picture? Is this a feature you’d be interesting in using?
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Follow me on Twitter @Makelevi.
Source: New York Times
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I don’t understand what the purpose of this Steam app is. I’ve been playing Steam games on my 63-inch TV for over a year without issue.
@Jason
LOL, yah, some people seem to have the idea that you can only play games on your HDTV with consoles… Weird, because I’ve also been hooking up my tv to my PC for quite a while too, but personally, I do it for watching movies since I have a Blu-Ray/HD-DVD/DVD drive on my PC, no need to buy a separate blu-ray player and lose the ability to play the super cheap HD-DVD’s I can buy, lol.
For gaming, I definitely prefer my 21″ monitor. The distance I sit from it, it’s the same as playing a game on my tv, except I have my keyboard and mouse controls. No thanks to the controller idea… I’ll save that for Mario on my Wii…
too little too late if ya ask me. i’ve had my pc hooked up to my 40 inch for a while now. wasn’t hard to do and i’ve shown all my friends how to do it as well (very simple) this isnt anything new lmao
I think the new interface is what they are really touting. Though over-hyped in opinion.
I am 12 years old and what is this?
I dont get it… An HDtv is just a big monitor if you use hook it up to your PC. What’s the point of the new interface? Your mouse cursor would still be there and your mouse is still needed to play games…
oh wait I get it- it’s for if you use the 360 controller to play PC games? Forgot that people actually do that haha
Ooh, so I get to use inferior controls on my HDTV that’s already been connected to my PC for years now?? Awesome…
Maybe this might get some console guys to jump over to the PC once they realize you can do everything a console can do with a PC. But for us PC users, this is old news and nothing really useful for most of us…
Inferior controls? And keyboard isn’t? I’d rather have something comapct and easy to execute all moves with.
Alright, let’s have a contest to see who can have more headshots in the least amount of time in a shooter…
And not just shooters, I’ve played through Batman: Arkham Asylum and City multiple times each, Asylum on the PS3 and my PC and City on the Xbox 360 and my PC and on both games I get much higher combo scores and just flat out faster and more precise gameplay on the PC with the keyboard and mouse…
But seriously, one day they should have cross platform games so we can settle it once and for all which controls are better, lol. Especially shooters, I love watching videos of people playing shooters on consoles, chasing targets around the screen it’s absolutely hilarious…
I will admit, some games have good ones. Like Space Marine. Left mouse button for gun, right for melee weapon? Awesome. But games like Darksiders 2? Sorry, no.
And please, keep that ‘pc gamers are smarter than all console gamers’ bs away from this. Not all of us are 12 year COD playing douches.
@Justin
Well, I really meant inferior controls for me since my favorite types of games are first-person since I like to immerse myself in games and for me the best way to do that is see through the protagonist’s own eyes, and for me, the keyboard and mouse controls are the best for those games hands down. I actually thought controllers would be better for a 3rd-person action-adventure game like the Batman games I mentioned, but when I played the same games at home on my PC, it was definitely much easier to have perfect combos and the flying assignments in Arkham City were 100 times easier for me on my PC than my friend’s 360…
But I do think games like sports games or fighting games the controller will be the best. And driving games, obviously a wheel and pedals will be the best, but if you don’t have that, between the keyboard and a controller, the controller is definitely better for that too…
so far from what ive seen this is an incredibly unpopular idea seeing as most pc gamers did this already. i liked the idea of a steam console when that rumor was floating around. now that was a good idea
@ Ken J
Alright, fair enough. Sorry if I got too defensive, just, some PC gamers are just cruel to console owners.
@Justin
Ah, I deserved it, I was kind of knocking consoles a bit, lol.
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