News Valve announces Big Picture mode for Steam

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2011/03/01/valve-announces-big-picture-mode-for-steam/1

 

Gr8t news !

 

are they going to release some sort of TV box for the beaming? or some sort of software on existing blu-ray players/consoles?

hope i can just update my S370 blu-ray player firmware for "Steam stream" feature that would be awesome!

 

I wonder how I can transfer steam to my 50" plasma. Must be a magical new invention from Valve.

 

Even for the average PC this could prove to be really sweet. Navigating the steam client with a controller? Yeah i'll have that!

 

the tv support is useless, they wasted there time

most gpu's nowadays have hdmi outputs on them and all new tv's have hdmi input

i use this to put both sound and graphics from my pc to tv the only good thing is the controller support, that a lot of games allready have

 

this is what the pc needs the only reason i own a console is because its to uncomfy to use a keyboard and mouse in front of my tv.

 

*coughs* whats the point in this? What have they actually achieved?

I play games through Steam on a 42" LCD screen at 1920x1080 via HDMI... Exactly what has been achieved other than another shiny sticker.

 

I don't actually get it.

Are we talking here about streaming your game to your telly via a media streamer? So load it up on your PC, then use your PS3 to stream it to your telly, and use the PS3 controller to control the game?
That would be pretty clever, but the lag would surely be immense?

Basically, is this like "OnLive" with your PC being the server?

Or have I missed the point entirely?

 

They have optimised the steam interface to allow remote/controller launching of games etc. This means you can play "console ports" on your tele.

As others have stated how this is intended to link with the TV is the interesting bit (just plain old HDMI or some streaming of sorts). 3rd party partners kind of hints at movie/music support which would be great as I will never buy anything of itunes as you cant redownload at any time (unlike steam!)

 

Its a magical new invention called "HDMI valve", ;D

 

Yes I agree 100% useless, as everyone in the world has all their TVs in the same room as their gaming PC.

Oh hold on, I think I may be unique. I have my gaming PC in my office, but my big screen TV in my living room. So... maybe I do have a use for such a feature. In fact it would be awesome!

Shanky, you're wrong. It would only be useless to you and the rest of the planet, I'm clearly the one person who could ever make use of such a feature.

Well done Valve.

Here's hoping they implement it in all of the following ways:

- Web based client, compatible with pretty much any web enabled TV
- Steam client, so any platform with steam can stream games from any steam "server" (This will do for me)
- Partnerships with media streamer,set-top,tv,blu-ray box mftrs etc
- App based client - Play PC steam games on iOS, Android etc
- Fully open client architecture, allowing anyone to roll their own play client if they are so inclined
- Onlive type streaming, from home to remote - Latency wouldn't work with all games, but for those it did...

Did I miss anything?

Oh and read the article people. It says "Throughout the house" which means it's not just over HDMI, as how would that work! It's got to be a streaming type service.

 

*cough*Episode3?*cough*

 

Surely this is just an 'apple tv/media centre' equivalent interface, with nothing to do with wireless streaming?

Native support for the xbox 360 wired/wireless controller would be great - utilising the central xbox button in-game to instantly bring up a large-screen adaptation of the shift+tab menu that includes game launching for instance.

 

The point is that you can navigate all the Steam menus with a control pad. They're not offering a way to physically connect your PC to your TV, dumbass. The point of it is that you can have a laptop/Macbook/Desktop/Media PC etc connected to your TV, and use Steam on it from the sofa, with appropriate text size and UI design for someone sat many feet away.

I don't know about you, but when I hook Steam up to my 1080p plasma, I have quite a hard time reading a lot of it from 10 feet away.

 

You want to get that cough seen to, you've had it for a few years now, and it doesn't appear to be getting better.

 

We are not talking about a cable or something to connect your computer to your TV (it exists for ages ... RCA, SVIDEO, HDMI, etc.)

What we are talking about is a more user friendly interface that doesn't require a mouse / keyboard combo to navigate through it. This is a good idea when you want to play from your sofa without having a keybord / mouse on your knees.

A GUI thought to be used with gamepad, good job and great addition. No need to constantly switch from gamepad to mouse while switching games.

 

Like Guinevere said, most gaming PCs are in bedrooms/studies or at the back of a lounge rather than under or near the main TV.

So how will Valve stream the game from the PC to the TV? Apple manage to stream using their £99 box, OnLive streams using their $99 box ... a lot of us here have media streamers and laptops, spare PCs, parts ... it isn't hard to create a receiving client that is unobtrusive to receive a streamed game. That's assuming that is the route they take. I'm sure there are other ideas of ways they can do it.

All I'm wondering is how many more kills will I get using my mouse and keyboard vs controllers n00bs.

 

I wonder if this will mean Steam for PS3? Now that would be awesome. I'd happily play through HL1/2 etc.

CS:S for PS3!

 

Im sorry, what does this bring to the table?

It seems like they are just doing a mini-home server system, but its steam only.

And the reason I play on a PC not a console is because I dont want a gay little controller, thank you valve. I'll stick to my old out-dated mouse and keyboard thank you very much, and If I wanted Steam through my TV I'd use this thing called an HDMI cable.