Valve recently opened up its Big Picture Mode for all in open beta. If you didn't know, Big Picture Mode is an alternate interface meant to be plugged into your television and navigated with a controller. Many have called it the opening volley in Valve's battle to take over the console market.

If you want to check it out, you can opt in by clicking Steam, Settings, and looking for the section that says "Beta participation" on the Accounts tab.

As when discussing anything on the internet, I'm going to say I like it, but complain anyway.

First, it's a little obviously ripping off the Xbox 360 interface and that's a problem for two reasons. One, it's shameless. They copied it right down to the little kerplunk noises everything makes. But more importantly, the 360 interface has long been criticized for its sluggishness. You only see a few panels at a time and scrolling through the rest is slow.

But the bigger issue is that right now, it's only an interface. Once you load up a game, you still have to change its resolution for it to look anything like it should on a TV. I doubt they'll ever get this worked in, at least retroactively. As the PSN has demonstrated, you need to get a lot of this stuff up in the first place, or you're never going to get it for the games you've already released. What's even more troubling is that if you want to view friend profiles (or anything in the community section, really) it actually opens up a browser and takes you to the steampowered website page to view it. That's a big no no, it should be in the interface and I hope they resolve this while still in beta.

Other than that, I just think it's ironic how we comment on the computerization of consoles, when the biggest gaming platform on PC is now getting consolized.