Steam Big Picture beta kicks off this week - report

Steam's Big Picture mode will go into open testing when Monday looms above the US, according to a mainstream news report.

The New York Times ran a profile piece on Valve over the weekend in which it claims "the company will begin a public test of a new television-friendly interface, Big Picture, for buying Steam games and playing them on computers in the living room".

Big Picture simplifies the Steam interface for use on a control pad and adjusts video output for big screen HD TVs. It was announced in March but had not been dated beyond a "coming soon" back in July.

The rest of the profile is probably pretty fluffy for you diehards, but there's some good stuff about Valve's interest in VR headsets, plus a little gem regarding its recent hardware push. Famously clever tinkerer Jeri Ellsworth told the paper she was pretty dubious about whether Valve was serious about hardware when it began trying to recruit her.

“At one point, I said a hardware lab could be very expensive, it could be like a million dollars,” she said.

“Gabe [Newell] said, ‘That’s it?’"