Big Picture: Steam for your TV

So, Valve's unveiled a new feature for Steam: Big Picture, which essentially allows you to use Steam on your TV and with a controller. It seems to be mostly Steam, just on a TV.

I'm pretty sure this is a software feature and not hardware, so don't get your hopes up.

edited 11th Sep '12 3:03:23 PM by RocketDude

I like the idea of this. I'm pretty sure the beta is open, so I'll have to try this with my laptop. I've used it to play Steam games on my TV before, but being able to use the controller to navigate Steam sounds like a nice bonus. The daisy wheel seems like a creative way of letting you type with the controller, and it seems much better than the "here's a qwerty keyboard on screen, navigate to the letter you want" method that most typing interfaces give you.

Yeah, left-stick and the button cluster looks like a pretty unique way of typing with a controller.

I...don't think I get how this work. Do you connect a computer to your TV and then put Steam in a special mode optimized for showing on TV or what?

That's exactly what it is. It also lets you navigate steam with your Xbox controller, so you don't have to get up and walk to the keyboard if you want to switch games.

Yeah, that. Actually, I think this sort of thing could be done in the past, but it required you to control it from the computer.

edited 11th Sep '12 5:06:57 PM by RocketDude

Huh, that's pretty cool. Too bad my desktop computer is too far away from my TV, but I'll test it with my laptop tomorrow.

edited 11th Sep '12 5:24:06 PM by Lemurian