Big Picture is another sign of Valve's intentions to move beyond PC game development and distribution. A recent sought a hardware industrial designer to "fill a void in the marketplace" by innovating in the computer hardware space. Last weekend, the reported that Valve is experimenting with wearable computing, such as a virtual reality headset. A hinted at a modular PC or gaming device from the company.

But let's not read into this particular development too much. Valve tends to move slowly--the company has left gamers hanging on the next episode of its Half-Life series for five years now--so whatever's next is probably a long time away. Valve's Greg Coomer tells Kotaku that, for now, the company just wants to release Big Picture and learn how people use it.

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