Steam releases Big Picture mode • Hacker News Board

Re: Steam releases Big Picture mode

#21

Post by bbee » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 11:21 PM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #12

w1ntermute wrote: post #11

There's an excellent post on The Verge forums called "Forget the PS4 and the Xbox 720, build your own Steambox on the cheap"[0]. It will be very exciting to see if a significant number of gamers (many of whom are already familiar with building their own PCs) take the initiative to go down this road. A nice auxiliary advantage of building a Steambox is that you can use it as a full-featured HTPC as well, since it runs…

I did literally just this last week, with an ITX motherboard, a 65W APU (Trinity), and a case to match. I'm quite pleased with the results, and with Big Picture mode (given it *was still Beta)

I'd be interested in hearing about that too. I just ordered parts to build my parents a computer, I'm using it as an excuse to try out a Trinity APU. If I like it I'll look into building an ITX size for myself.

Re: Steam releases Big Picture mode

#22

Post by TobiasFunkeMD » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 11:28 PM UTC

nullymcnull wrote: post #20

Even better, the update finally includes the ability to install games to drives other than the one steam itself is installed to.

AWESOME! I've been waiting for this! I've got an SSD that I only want to install certain games on because it is not big enough.

Re: Steam releases Big Picture mode

#23

Post by stock_toaster » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 11:33 PM UTC

I wonder if steam will eventually add other media (movies, tvshows, etc) to their ecosystem.

Re: Steam releases Big Picture mode

#24

Post by james4k » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 11:36 PM UTC

Even though it's called Big Picture mode, it looks like it could potentially make a great touch interface.

Re: Steam releases Big Picture mode

#25

Post by missing_cipher » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 11:45 PM UTC

stock_toaster wrote: post #23

I wonder if steam will eventually add other media (movies, tvshows, etc) to their ecosystem.

They have "Indie Game: The Movie": http://store.steampowered.com/app/207080

So they may add more stuff in the future.

Re: Steam releases Big Picture mode

#26

Post by AshleysBrain » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 11:46 PM UTC

I'm a HTML5 game dev so not really positioned to comment on the main story, but I did try out the Big Picture browser:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; Valve Steam Tenfoot/2095; ) AppleWebKit/535.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/18.0.989.0 Safari/535.11

So, Chrome 18. What is it with Chrome 18 given Chrome for Android is also stuck on that version? Maybe coincidence and slow release cycles... (Also, Tenfoot? Hmm)

I also tried playing a HTML5 game with it, which could be awesome with gamepad support. It seemed to freeze the browser and kept playing sounds in a loop, even after I had exited Steam... had to reboot to get rid of it. Guess it needs some work.

Re: Steam releases Big Picture mode

#27

Post by kmfrk » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 11:52 PM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #14

squidsoup wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you consider blogging about this? I'd like to do something similar next year.

I wouldn't mind writing about it, but I don't exactly have a blog. What is a good medium for a one-shot post like that?

Ironically, Medium: http://medium.com.

Otherwise, Tumblr or a gist powered by http://gist.io.

Re: Steam releases Big Picture mode

#28

Post by mtgx » Tue, Dec 04, 2012, 12:01 AM UTC

w1ntermute wrote: post #11

There's an excellent post on The Verge forums called "Forget the PS4 and the Xbox 720, build your own Steambox on the cheap"[0]. It will be very exciting to see if a significant number of gamers (many of whom are already familiar with building their own PCs) take the initiative to go down this road. A nice auxiliary advantage of building a Steambox is that you can use it as a full-featured HTPC as well, since it runs…

Anything that tries to disrupt, or at least compete on the same level with the Xbox and Playstation, is a good thing, and that includes OUYA as well.

Re: Steam releases Big Picture mode

#29

Post by 54mf » Tue, Dec 04, 2012, 12:06 AM UTC

AshleysBrain wrote: post #26

I'm a HTML5 game dev so not really positioned to comment on the main story, but I did try out the Big Picture browser: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; Valve Steam Tenfoot/2095; ) AppleWebKit/535.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/18.0.989.0 Safari/535.11 So, Chrome 18. What is it with Chrome 18 given Chrome for Android is also stuck on that version? Maybe coincidence and slow release cycles... (Also, Tenfo…

Don't get too hyped by "tenfoot":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10-foot_user_interface

Just a clever reference to the UI paradigm.

Re: Steam releases Big Picture mode

#30

Post by tarice » Tue, Dec 04, 2012, 12:07 AM UTC

Watching this, I'm reminded of the OUYA. Isn't this exactly what they were trying to accomplish?

In fact, it seems to me that Valve's Big Picture, combined with the ability to "make your own Steambox", completely trumps the OUYA.

Why would a game developer want to create a new port of their game to a completely new system when they could just optionally add controller support and publish to Steam?

Valve's got the player-base and game library, and now they're in the living room. Is OUYA's niche gone?