Steam's Big Picture mode is pretty neat, I guess

[Executor32]

So, Steam's Big Picture Mode beta went live a couple hours ago. I rather like it, it really makes me wish I had a big TV to try it out on. I especially like their approach to typing with a controller, and I'm surprised no one has thought of it before: You use the left thumbstick to highlight one of eight clusters in a wheel, then you use XYBA to select one of the four letters/numbers/symbols in the highlighted cluster. RB is Space, LB is Backspace, LT and RT are modifiers for caps and numbers, respectively, and LT+RT is the symbol modifier. It kind of reminds me of the weapon wheel in AC2/AssBro/AssRev, and it's much easier and quicker to use than an on-screen QWERTY keyboard like the Xbox's text input.

So far, the only problems I can see with Big Picture are that the Home button on the controller opens Steam In-game when Big Picture is enabled, which probably conflicts with GFWL titles, and games that use launchers (like Ubi games) still require you to use the mouse to start the actual game and to exit the launcher afterward. If you want to try it out for yourself, go into your Steam settings and opt into the Steam Beta Update.