Steam Launches Big Picture With Sale
Steam’s Big Picture mode leaves beta today, and will be available to all Steam users (as opposed to those who opted in to the beta) via an update. The mode which makes Steam full-screen and can be navigated via a controller in a similar manner to the Xbox 360’s dashboard, still isn’t perfect, but is very polished and a great way to make your Mac more console-like.
Whilst in Big Picture, you can easily browse through your games collection via several preset categories (though sadly it will still show non-Mac games in some cases, which is particularly annoying when you really just want to see “Mac games with controller support”), go to the Steam store, and visit the Steam Community, all with a controller and/or mouse. It’s great to see Steam pushing the envelope here, as this is a direction Apple could easily have taken with its Game Center but instead chose to release something that’s all but useless.
To commemorate the launch, there’s something of a sale going on, with several controller-enabled games, including Mac-friendly Castle Crashers and Wizorb sporting hefty discounts.