With all the Steam on Linux news Valve is pushing pretty hard into to break into your living room. I know most of us have heard of the new Steam Big Picture Mode but we might not have all seen it in action. Recently it showed up on my Mac Steam client so I took a few minutes to make a video showing off what it looks like.

Overall, Steam Big Picture Mode is beautifully usable. Its so well designed for a first effort it really showcases the huge difference between Valve and the traditional console makers: Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony. Sony just pushed a pretty large update to the Sony Online Marketplace and its better, but doesn't come close to the first version of Steam's Big Picture Mode.

What do you think of Steam Big Picture Mode? Does this seem like something you might find pretty easy to use or do you prefer the current console offerings?

Regardless, Steam's Big Picture Mode doesn't throw as many ads at your as XBox Live. Something I find pretty interesting considering you have to pay for XBox Live and have advertising thrown at you so prominently.

Travis   Admin wrote on 11/23/2012 at 01:50pm

One minor correction-- you can make a free XBox Live silver account to access the store and such. However in order to play online with others (in most cases) you have to have a gold account. It would be nice if you could hide the ads with a gold account.

Travis   Admin wrote on 11/23/2012 at 02:56pm

More importantly, though, Big Picture mode is amazing. I have used it for my main PC, not my living room PC, and I can even see benefits to it with a mouse and keyboard. I can't wait to see what, if anything, all of these new projects Valve is pursuing are leading up to.

If you want to join this conversation you need to sign in.
Sign Up / Log In