Today Valve released Big Picture mode for Steam. It's a different interface layer for Steam for when using on a couch. It works quite well with a wired 360 controller and immediately made me look into getting a wireless controller. It's a great start, and is already more fun to use than the Microsoft and Sony products it's competing with.
It does still have some potholes, though; when navigating through the store you'll sometimes get kicked back to the Steam web browser. The browser is designed to be used with a controller and works pretty well, but it's still a bit jarring to go from a really well-designed tiled interface to a webpage. Somewhat reminiscent of when using Windows 8 and getting kicked around between the Metro interface and the legacy desktop.
There doesn't seem to be a way to set Steam to start up directly into Big Picture mode, but hopefully I'm either missing something or that is on the short list of to do's. There are a few things that could be better, like having a home/start page where the user could have some limited customization. Big Picture mode does help make a console-style PC like the Alienware x51 much more alluring. However, those start at around $700, and when talking about a couch-potato gaming entertainment center, one has to start talking about a much less expensive and easier-to-setup PS3 or 360. It does, however, fill my head with wonderful optimistic thoughts of the modular computer entertainment console of the future.
- Gideon done
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