Big Picture is the company’s first steps to get into living room’s everywhere as it makes turning your PC into a console as easy as pie. Sort of.
Firstly, Big Picture (which is the name for the alt version of Steam’s dashboard that you can activate as of some time later today) is just a second way to view and operate in Steam.
You can check out the store’s virtual shelves, launch games, and even browse the web (with a surprisingly nice browser interface) all with a front end designed specifically for television viewing. Basically that amounts to a streamlined look, larger text, easier to use menus (that are controller compatible), and a pretty fantastic ‘flower-like’ keyboard (it makes sense when you see it).
Honestly that’s all pretty cool stuff, but it still takes a beast of a PC to run most ‘triple A’ games as they were meant to be played, something that an actual console does ‘out of the box. With that in mind, is Big Picture likely to sway new users into the PC arena? Maybe not. You do have to wonder though, might this just be an extremely effective way for Valve to test Steam’s viability in a set top box format?
When asked about that by Kotaku’s Jason Schreier, the PC giant didn’t deny such a thing was never to be in the cards. Valve’s own Greg Coomer acknowledged that the company ‘knows’ fans want to be able to game from their living room, controller in hand.
Basically, he referred to the new mode as a learning experience for the gaming giant. Coomer also inferred that if people use Big Picture mode and take to it in ways that Steam think they might- well, you never know what might come along down the road.
At the very least, it should be interesting to see what happens. So here’s the question(s), dear readers, will you use Big Picture? And if you do, will it be as a novelty or do you see yourself making use of it on a regular basis?
Personally, I can’t wait to give it a go.
