Steam on your TV

One · 11 Sep 2012 at 00:31

welshdapper said:
had a look and i must say it is very cool but why a browser ??

In the press video they talk about how lots of tvs don't have practical browsers. Well now all you have to do is have steam open and you can browse teh real web from your couch.

The whole thing is geared to be your one stop shop from when you load steam to when you sit on your couch.

If there was a convenient way to jump between xbmc and steam it would be amazing!

ThePirateHulk · 11 Sep 2012 at 00:40

desires said:
If there was a convenient way to jump between xbmc and steam it would be amazing!

Is it a separate EXE? If so, you should be able to use one of the many app launcher plugins available on XMBC.

One · 11 Sep 2012 at 00:50

ThePirateHulk said:
Is it a separate EXE? If so, you should be able to use one of the many app launcher plugins available on XMBC.

I'm not too sure if steam has a launch option for 'big picture' or not. That's definitely an option if steam is able to be launched in it's full screen mode though.

ThePirateHulk · 11 Sep 2012 at 00:57

It would be a bit silly to not have that option since the whole point is so that you can ditch the kb and mouse. It defeats the purpose if you need a mouse to get Steam to go into this mode.

dante6491 · 11 Sep 2012 at 01:50

It is out now in the opt in Beta. So smooth. Really tidy update.

IIDeathCubeKII · 11 Sep 2012 at 02:50

Just bought myself a brand new Panasonic plasma. I will be trying this

Murray · 11 Sep 2012 at 05:51

Pretty amazing update. They are going to add an indication that shows what games are controller supported as well, so that will be good.

Using the browser for this now, I like it. Its nice and easy to use and it works great with the controller and I love that you can just move the mouse and type with the keyboard inside it as well so its not just a console/controller browser.

The keyboard is pretty nice as well, could take a bit of getting used to first though

Its a bit tricky trying to get the cursor where you want when typing and I think it would be good if there was an option to just move the reticle without moving the whole browser.

If you press the home button on the controller it puts steam into big picture mode.

insane200 · 11 Sep 2012 at 07:42

How do you get this to work ? my client says its up to date, but i see nothing about big picture

lee87 · 11 Sep 2012 at 07:49

insane200 said:
How do you get this to work ? my client says its up to date, but i see nothing about big picture

You need to get the beta update.

Go to view > settings > change beta participation > select steam beta update

insane200 · 11 Sep 2012 at 08:02

lee87 said:
You need to get the beta update.

Go to view > settings > change beta participation > select steam beta update

Thanks, doing it now.

iv-tecman · 11 Sep 2012 at 09:07

It’s a nice idea, I tried it last night. Browser was good, the keyboard wheel with the colours matching your 360 pad for each letter was a good idea, youtube needs to be the same as the Android App as that works much better then trying to use youtube in a web browser on your telly..

Problem I did find, if you’ve added a none steam game, the game is listed but you get no picture for the game, only a steam logo, I attempted to add my own but it didn’t work… Not sure how to fix that, otherwise yeah liked it.

Not much good for launching say a total war game, or Mass Effect as they don’t use gamepads, but gamepad supported games will be perfect for this.

Murray · 11 Sep 2012 at 09:27

If you add '-tenfoot' to your steam launch options then it'll start in big picture mode. So I reckon you could have steam to start on boot and it'll go straight into big picture mode and be pretty much a console with windows in the background?

iv-tecman · 11 Sep 2012 at 09:37

Ah found a problem, or at least fixed a problem to get another problem. Game thumbnails or custom images.

For some reason custom icons are shown properly on the recently played part, but when selecting all games they're all just blank Steam icons instead.

So if you go to Grid mode in none big picture mode, select a custom icon for a none steam game, it displays fine in none big picture mode, in big picture mode it displays fine in recently played, but go to all games, its just the default steam icon instead...

malachi · 11 Sep 2012 at 09:48

Tried this today, looks nice on my TV's. Would be great if this was intergating to XMBC/WMC and Windows 8.

Combat squirrel · 11 Sep 2012 at 10:02

This looks great, I already have a dedicated i5 gaming PC for my 50" plasma.

My question is......currently I can only run steam on either my games pc or my main rig, I prefer to run SOME games on my main rig....annoyingly though I have to keep reactivating steam when I switch computers....

Does this solve that problem ? Will it allow me to run steam on one or the other pc (not at the same time) without making me reactivate?

Murray · 11 Sep 2012 at 10:34

Combat squirrel said:
This looks great, I already have a dedicated i5 gaming PC for my 50" plasma.

My question is......currently I can only run steam on either my games pc or my main rig, I prefer to run SOME games on my main rig....annoyingly though I have to keep reactivating steam when I switch computers....

Does this solve that problem ? Will it allow me to run steam on one or the other pc (not at the same time) without making me reactivate?

You could always just go into offline mode on one of them?

Fars · 11 Sep 2012 at 11:29

Looks very promising, can't wait to try it on both desktop and sofa pc gaming.

One · 11 Sep 2012 at 16:54

I got stuck with Train Simulator advert until I clicked on it! No way out, forced advertising, unless I'm missing something. Interesting to see if it's just a bug or not!

shootersam · 11 Sep 2012 at 19:42

gizmoy2k said:
Think its becoming clear that steam are aiming for a console type box in the future which can at least play all of valves current titles well at 1080p.

Combat squirrel · 11 Sep 2012 at 23:24

Murray said:
You could always just go into offline mode on one of them?

I have, its annoying, steam REALLY need to sort this, also it should have cloud saves, that way I can play on my games rig when I wanna sit back with a beer, but if it got serious move up stairs to my mental pc, gaming, its a serious business ya know.