PC gaming on your big screen: Steam TV Beta goes live

While there won’t be a “Steam box” any time soon, you’ll still be able to experience your Steam library on your TV with Steam’s Big Picture Mode.

Valve released a trailer giving a few details of Big Picture Mode’s beta.

At first glimpse, it seems that Steam’s Big Picture Mode, which can be accessed with a simple click on an appropriately labeled transparent bubble, simplifies Steam’s interface to be tile-like (think Xbox Live) to be more easily navigable with a controller.

Big Picture Mode will retain all of Steam’s features, including the browser, which will feature tabbed browsing and cloud-saved favorites. Typing with Big Picture Mode has—thankfully—been simplified. Shunning the QWERTY layout, typing on Steam in Big Picture Mode involves the Daisywheel, where four letters are assigned to the four face buttons. Every letter is grouped into four and displayed in a wheel, and each grouping can be cycled between using the d-pad or analog sticks.

For more details, go to Steam’s official page for Big Picture Mode.

Steam has announced the availability of a new beta client for Windows and Mac that will allow users to remotely manage their accounts from their phone or the web. This includes the ability for remote downloads of games, meaning you can start downloadinggames to your home computer while you’re slaving away at work and dreaming of the Orange Box.

The new beta client was announced via the Steam forums. It also offers reduced excessive system memory usage while downloading updates and added debug code to diagnose download issues. Judging from the forums, some people aren’t seeing remote management immediately when they install the new beta. There also seems to be a few reoccurring bugs (Steam has already issued fixes for two).

To check it out for yourself, go to File -> Settings. On the Account tab press the Change… button to open the Beta Participation dialog. Then Select “Steam Beta Update”, and allow Steam to restart itself.