Playing your favorite game on Steam while listening to your favorite tunes in the background will soon be much more convenient. That’s because Valve is now beta testing a new feature called Steam Music that brings your audio collection right into the Big Picture / SteamOS interface.
At present, one is forced to play music in a separate application (or on a separate device completely) when using Steam. That can be a pain as you may need to switch windows quite often to keep your favorite music queued up and more often than not, full screen games really aren’t a fan of alt-tab.
It’s even more difficult with Big Picture as most desktop music apps use small fonts and equally small buttons for navigation.
But with Steam Music, tunes are now at your fingertips right in the Big Picture / SteamOS interface. Simply tell the app where your music is stored and it’ll build a library complete with album art. Managing the music in-game is also a breeze as the controls have been integrated onto the same overlay used to monitor achievements and keep track of friends – or in other words, you don’t have to leave the game to do so.
The service is being rolled out in waves to those that have opted-in to test it. Interested parties can opt-in by visiting the Steam Music group. Unfortunately the feature is only available for Big Picture / SteamOS as of writing but Valve promises it will be coming to the desktop in the not-too-distant future.
