The idea of a Steam console has been the subject of speculation for a while now, and with the advent of the Steam Big Picture Beta that speculation is a step closer to reality.

Yesterday saw the beta launch of the service that allows Steam users to luxury of playing their Steam games from the comfort of their couch on a system designed for use  with the more traditional keyboard and mouse set up or the brand new controller based interface designed especially for the system.

Also included is what Steam call the world’s first “first person web browser”  but more importantly all of this is now available on your TV rather than having to sit at the PC in the more traditional manner.

It’s free to use and compatible with the usual Windows and Mac devices and is a public beta so you can sign up now at  http://store.steampowered.com/bigpicture and play with the future.