Steam coming to TVs

The Game Developers Conference is barely under way in San Francisco, but announcements are already beginning to pop up. This morning, Valve announced plans to expand its Steam content delivery service to the biggest screens in gamers' homes--their televisions.

"Our partners and customers have asked us to make Steam available in more places. With the introduction of Steam on the Mac, and soon in Portal 2 on the PS3, we've done just that," said Valve vice president of marketing Doug Lombardi. "With big picture mode, gaming opportunities for Steam partners and customers become possible via PCs and Macs on any TV or computer display in the house."

Valve did not elaborate on how Steam would be brought to televisions, but did say that big picture mode would "offer controller support and navigation designed for television interaction." It said it would share further details on the service with developers and publishers during private meetings at GDC.

As of last October, Steam had more than 30 million customers worldwide. It is currently available for the PC and Mac and will see some functionality arrive on the PlayStation 3 with the release of Portal 2 in April.