Valve Launches Special TV Mode For Steam With ‘Big Picture’

Today Valve announced their newest beta project. Putting Steam on your television. Big Picture mode optimizes the Steam application and games for your TV. Take a look at the very Pixar sounding trailer below.

So, Big Picture. Whats up with that? It is basically a full screen mode for Steam that is optimized for TVs, it runs properly formatted for the TV’s over scan and gives you access to that nice daisywheel keyboard, but is it really that big of a leap?

The first “issue” I have with it is its placement. You have to have your gaming PC hooked up to your TV, with and HDMI cable. If you have an HTPC that is capable of playing game then you already have step one solved. The next problem I see  is the controller interface. Not all games will allow use of a controller, or even work that well with one.

Really the video gives you the impression that this is some next level PC-TV integration, but its just a controller mode for Steam. You still have to push the BIG PICTURE button to start it. Hopefully the guys over at Valve give us a little more to go along with this.

For more info check out the official site HERE.