Play Steam Games In Your Living Room With The Big Picture, Mac Beta Coming Soon

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Steam The Big Picture

Steam, the online portal for Mac and PC games, announced a new beta feature coming tonight to PCs and soon to Macs – The Big Picture. Parent company Valve has created a new way to play games purchased through the Steam store, using the same exact Steam friends list and games you already own.

Once you’ve updated the Steam client, you’ll be able to click a button and play your games with a controller, a mouse and keyboard, or what have you. Valve has made the new interface controller-friendly, designed to kick back on a couch and play games right on the big screen TV you already have in your living space.

As mentioned in the video below, the new navigation is made specifically for the controller, so when you connect your PS3, Xbox 360 or other third-party gaming peripheral to your computer, it will be just like playing on a console. All you need to do is connect your Mac to the big screen via HDMI and you’ll be able to play every game you already own on the Steam service. Think of it – The Walking Dead on a big screen, just like the Xbox version. Portal and Portal 2, Left 4 Dead, Super Meat Boy, and all those games you’ve grabbed fromt he Humble Indie Bundles will be live, playable, and controller-ready.

While the PC beta begins tonight, we reached out to Valve to find out when the Mac beta, prominently displayed as “coming soon” on the Big Picture website page, would be released. Greg Coomer, Product Designer at Valve Corporation, replied, saying, “We don’t have a date to tell you yet. But we definitely don’t want Mac users to be in the dark on Big Picture for too long, so this is a priority for us.”

We’ll of course let you know as soon as a date for the Mac beta is announced, so stay tuned. Until then, check out the video for the new interface below. Are you as impressed as we are? Let us know in the comments.

Source: Steam

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