Quote Originally Posted by Bolivar View Post
For the third time, it's not just the impotency of Big Picture, which I've already written extensively about, but the disingenuous attitude indicated by the inadequacy of its official release.
How is it actually inadequate though? Honestly now? Because every game on Steam doesn't integrate perfectly and support it? Excuse me if I find that a poor criticism of a brand spanking new feature. Support will come in time if companies want to and if Valve pushes for it. If anything, a Steam console will insure even more support for it. Again, I think your criticism is pretty off base. A brand new PC interface having some minor growing pains (again, from my limited experience with it I had no issues at all) isn't all that relevant to the question of whether a console made by Valve is a good idea. The two aren't related. Especially when your entire criticism is that not every game supports it, and it has some issues with integrating seamlessly on a TV. These aren't issues a dedicated console built from the ground up on both the software and hardware fronts faces. Support from third party titles is not a problem when support can be mandated on a dedicated console.

I honestly just don't understand why you think a Steam console will have the same problems that the first release of Big Picture mode has. Which is what this thread is about: the possibility of a Steam console, not the initial release and continued development of Big Picture mode. Moreover, I think it's more than a little naive to believe that a UI which already works well in many respects will not be further improved, particularly with the additional feedback they'll get from going public with it instead of keeping it as an optional Beta. Obviously it's going to get better, especially if they do go the console route. But even as it is, it works quite well right now for what it absolutely needs to do: using your game library and playing games.

This is how Valve works on small features like Big Picture mode: they make it, release it, get feedback, and continually iterate. It's one of the reasons that the end product they come up with is almost always better than everything the competition puts out.