[jcastro]

I've also been doing this. I have a pretty beefy windows machine that I have configured to launch into big picture mode on boot with an Xbox 360 controller and the experience is about 85% there. It is kind of a pain in the ass having a controller, a keyboard, and a trackball in my living room in addition to the TV remote stuff.

It's also annoying to have a full desktop PC in the living room. When game streaming lands in Steam I'll be able to move that entire box into my office and then just have a simple front end Steam Machine handling driving the TV. People keep posting pics of the streaming UI but they haven't turned it on yet.

For my "front end" machines I am using 2 Ubuntu laptops with background auto updating turned on, steam in big picture mode on boot, and either an Xbox controller or a Logitech 710. I am thinking those will hold me over until Valve starts publishing the case CAD files and I'll be able to build my own proper machine.