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Steam's Big Picture Mode beta starts Monday Sep 10th [out now]

Is this an elaborated joke by all of you ?

It doesn't looks practical at all.

Virtual keyboard all the way.

It looks like it lets you take full advantage of both hands on the controller. I think it'll be much faster than any virtual keyboard especially when you get used to it. A small Bluetooth keyboard is what use though.
 
Before I get myself too confused, can someone just clarify if it's possible to actually get this today (can you enable the beta in settings)?
 
I like that you can have it some up automatically when you turn the computer on. Time for a dedicated gaming PC I think.
 
That virtual keyboard has an almost identical implementation to the virtual keyboard in Killzone 1 on PS2. I am so happy it's finally getting used elsewhere.
 
Before I get myself too confused, can someone just clarify if it's possible to actually get this today (can you enable the beta in settings)?

We don't know if the beta will actually begin today (it should, but Valve Time) and we also don't know if access will initially be invite-only (e.g. Steam Community) or open to all; although, as no mention of a closed beta was made in the article, I assume the latter.
 
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In the context of the previous week, this is abso-fucking-lutely hilarious. Or it would be, if it wasn't flagrantly and horrifically hypocritical.

Regardless, it's good to know that Valve are against walled gardens when it comes to people who have already made it over the wall. You fight the power you crazy rebel you!
 
I've been using my pc on a 46" bravia for 3 years now, I'm sure the SBPM is more practical and I will definitely try it but so far I've been doing pretty good with my setup :)
Wouldn't mind bigger fonts on the desktop one tough
 
Wow, while this isn't something I'd currently use everyday the future potential seems very promising. That new keyboard style is absolutely genius.
 
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In the context of the previous week, this is abso-fucking-lutely hilarious. Or it would be, if it wasn't flagrantly and horrifically hypocritical.

Regardless, it's good to know that Valve are against walled gardens when it comes to people who have already made it over the wall. You fight the power you crazy rebel you!

Not sure I understand what you're talking about.
 
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In the context of the previous week, this is abso-fucking-lutely hilarious. Or it would be, if it wasn't flagrantly and horrifically hypocritical.

Regardless, it's good to know that Valve are against walled gardens when it comes to people who have already made it over the wall. You fight the power you crazy rebel you!
Yes, because mutiple thousand dollar certification fees, plus fees per patch after the first patch, are comparable to a $100 charitable donation with free patching and no lengthy certification processes thereafter (if accepted onto Steam).
 
Yes, because mutiple thousand dollar certification fees, plus fees per patch after the first patch, are comparable to a $100 charitable donation with free patching and no lengthy certification processes thereafter (if accepted onto Steam).

Don't get me wrong - those are hardly just, and are why games like Fez remain unpatched despite a developer willingness to do so.

But they can't go throwing around words like "walled garden" and "openness" a week after launching a giant gatekeeping mechanism like Greenlight. It's outright disingenuous.
 
Own multiple copies of a game to play split-screen, huh? Fuck off.

Well this is a feature steam is working on. They're hardly going to patch other developers games? It's a nice feature for people who have friends, who use steam

Hopefully this Big Picture mode from steam will inspire developers to start including split screen in PC games more often. I'd probably buy Black Ops II for the PC, if it had split screen zombies.

EDIT: Spent so long writing this out, didn't see your follow up.
 
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In the context of the previous week, this is abso-fucking-lutely hilarious. Or it would be, if it wasn't flagrantly and horrifically hypocritical.

Regardless, it's good to know that Valve are against walled gardens when it comes to people who have already made it over the wall. You fight the power you crazy rebel you!
Are there still devs QQing over not being to get $100 worth of donations or from selling their game on their own site?
 
Own multiple copies of a game to play split-screen, huh? Fuck off.

I think there's a misunderstanding here. As I understand it (well, this is more of an assumption given no finer details were presented), the idea isn't to replace traditional split-screen play, but to offer a way to have a split-screen experience in games that offer MP but don't offer split-screen itself.
 
I'd be very happy if they bind Steam overlay button on Xbox 360 guide button
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I don't think Microsoft likes you rebinding that particular button. Or at least it doesn't seem to be a valid bind option in a lot of games. Which is annoying since the button does nothing in Windows except show a very inaccurate battery gauge.
 
Based on the number of articles I've read about the topic in the last few days? Yeah, I'd say there's a sizable contingent of people out there disappointed with Valve's decision.
If they can't get together $100 (£62) to get their game on Greenlight, then I would argue it shouldn't be on Steam anyway. It's not as if Steam is the ONLY way they can sell their game - if the game is even remotely good they should easily be able to make back the submission fee at the very least from selling it through their own website.
 
Based on the number of articles I've read about the topic in the last few days? Yeah, I'd say there's a sizable contingent of people out there disappointed with Valve's decision.
And there's a sizeable portion of developers who realize that the $100 classicism debate is a strawman, and that if you can't even get $100 worth of interest from people, it probably shouldn't be on Steam to begin with. And it's been debated to death in this thread, where you might want to go instead of threadcrapping and derailing here.
 
This input method is definitely not new.

Durante already posted one of his works on PSP, where this input method was present in lots of homebrews. But I'm trying to find one game that used about the same concept (GRAW 2, I think?) and more importantly, one guy that posted on Reddit a long while ago, claiming having created it, or a least refining it. Only difference was it used two sticks instead of one stick and face buttons, if I recall correctly. But I haven't managed to find it yet. Ring any bells ?
 
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In the context of the previous week, this is abso-fucking-lutely hilarious. Or it would be, if it wasn't flagrantly and horrifically hypocritical.

Regardless, it's good to know that Valve are against walled gardens when it comes to people who have already made it over the wall. You fight the power you crazy rebel you!
what? I'd rather have a selection of user picked games that are good, then a wall of crap to sift trough. 100 dollars is peanuts compared to the revenue you could receive if your game gets published. Anyway, that's all I want to say about this and i'd like you to take the discussion you are trying to create, in a thread of its own. This is a discussion about Big picture mode, and not about how hypocritical valve is.
 
Don't get me wrong - those are hardly just, and are why games like Fez remain unpatched despite a developer willingness to do so.

But they can't go throwing around words like "walled garden" and "openness" a week after launching a giant gatekeeping mechanism like Greenlight. It's outright disingenuous.

Steam is as close to an open platform you can get without having a bunch of fart apps.

Sounds good to me.
 
If they can't get together $100 (£62) to get their game on Greenlight, then I would argue it shouldn't be on Steam anyway. It's not as if Steam is the ONLY way they can sell their game - if the game is even remotely good they should easily be able to make back the submission fee at the very least from selling it through their own website.

It's also worth mentioning that the fee is one-off per account, so when a dev pays the $100, he/she needn't worry about coughing it up again for future submissions. That said, I can understand the amount may seem too high for some.
 
probably because someone did?
i remember some old homebrew for the first Xbox doing the keyboard in that same way.

but it's Valve so it's irrelevant

So because someone made a homebrew version of it a decade ago Valve shouldn't be applauded for making it a vital part of their Steam Big Picture mode where no one else has over the years?
 
Can someone explain why I would want or be interested in this? I have not been following this project.


You can have the best of both worlds - comfy couch gaming with the best versions of multiform games.

Encourages developers to integrate controller support

Open environment for AAA games to be patched quickly

Mod support in a console like setting (see Skyrim)

Access to a world of indie games that could perform well in a couch/controller setting.

This would set a precedent for more indie devs to incorporate controller and large screen display support.

This could lead to a Steam open hardware standard for PC games, which would be fantastic!
 
Lawsuit incoming? :p

So help me understand this. Is this basically a consolised Steam UI for tv? So, I have to hook up my pc to the tv to properly experience it?

no, I can see this being useful on a normal PC, mainly if you're going to be playing games using a controller, you don't have to switch back and forth. Hopefully there is a way to easily switch between big picture and normal steam

don't think of it as TV mode, think of it as Controller mode.
 
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