Valve Officially Launches TV-Friendly Steam Big Picture Mode

An anonymous reader writes "Valve on Monday announced the public release of Big Picture, Steam's new mode that lets gamers access their games on a TV, in over 20 languages. Big Picture lets you use a traditional gamepad (as well as a keyboard and mouse) to access the complete Steam store and Steam Community from the comfort of the couch in your living room."

LAN Streaming

[Githaron]

They should consider creating making a LAN version of game streaming, you have a small thin client hooked up to your TV but all all the work is done by your beast desktop in the next room. The biggest hindrance to their current setup is that most people don't have their computer hooked up to their TV because they use it for other things than just gaming. They could call it Steaming (Steam + Streaming). :)

Re:About .. eh.... time?

[Anonymous Coward]

have you tried smartglass for the xbox? i have it on my nexus 7, you can control the menu and type using the keyboard on the tablet.

damn i sound like a shill, maybe i should check my mailbox for a check when i get home. Im sure the app isnt perfect but it beats the heck out of the gamepad text entry.

Re:More bloat

[Anonymous Coward]

Steam for Mac has a memory leak relating to the way it handles windows (insert joke here). Instead of closing windows it just hides them. This can cause memory to skyrocket.

Re:About .. eh.... time?

[damien_kane]

No problems, other than having to use a mouse to pick which game they wanted to play, and, potentially, having to sit closer to the screen to see the list (unless they upped their font-sizes).

This is a different UI for Steam
It's geared towards the 8' or 10' user (sitting on the couch), and accessible via Remote Control or Gamepad, instead of mouse.
It essentially cleans up your coffee table (removing the kb/mouse from being needed, unless the game you choose requires it)

I, as a person looking for a similar frontend to emulators (that is easy to use and will do the scraping of my collection for me, like Sick Beard and EmberMM did for TV/Movies), welcome this new UI, and might start using Steam more again (lately have not been playing too many PC games)