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Valve Quietly Discontinues Steam Link Hardware Production (arstechnica.com)
Valve is quietly discontinuing Steam Link, the in-home streaming box it first launched in late 2015. From a report: A low-key announcement on Valve's Steam Link news page suggests that production of new units has ceased and that Valve is currently selling off the rest of its "almost sold out" inventory in the US, after selling out completely in Europe. Valve says it will continue to offer support for existing Steam Link hardware.
The $50 Steam Link was designed for streaming games from a local gaming PC to an HDTV in the same house, a job it did pretty well provided your networking hardware was up to it. In recent months, though, Valve has shifted its focus away from dedicated streaming hardware and toward mobile apps that can provide the same feature.
The $50 Steam Link was designed for streaming games from a local gaming PC to an HDTV in the same house, a job it did pretty well provided your networking hardware was up to it. In recent months, though, Valve has shifted its focus away from dedicated streaming hardware and toward mobile apps that can provide the same feature.
I haven't had many issues. most of the issues I have had are based on my pc having a issue running the game I'm trying or steam not wanting to go into big screen mode. I also make sure the steam link and my pc are hooked up via network cable and not wifi.
I brought two, both really cheap when on sale. One in the living room and one in the bedroom. It's nice to play from the bed or sofa as I would a console.
seems like dumb editorializing by the author as streaming to a mobile device isn't the same use case, and further Samsung also embeds steam streaming in a number of their televisions.
It would be more cost effective for Valve to simply have an image for Raspberry Pi, known hardware and cheap. While more technically difficult than a dedicated device we are talking about PC gamers who likely have a bit of aptitude
Works really well for me to play console type games on my couch. But the whole Steam Link app seems a bit ridiculous, mobile games are for killing time when out and about, not for playing on my couch (at least not for me...).
The idea of it running on the Samsung TV is cool but not interested in a new TV and if I did it most likely wouldn't be a Samsung. Wake me up when there is a Roku app.
The Link has been in my closet ever since. Have never used it. TV is to close to the computer, so I ran an HDMI cable.
They were running a promotion for these with that game.
Buy the game and get it for $1 plus shipping.
Honestly bought it for the game. Which turned out to be complete shit. A metroidvania style game that had a great look, great animation, and good audio,
Too bad it was a shitty narration game with a boring narrator.
http://progressquest.com/spoltog.php?name=Son+Of+Son+Of+DarkRookie
It has always worked well for me. I notice when playing graphic intense games such as Destiny 2 or anything like that there is a slight lag you can tell even when running off Ethernet cable. The 2D and indie games usually all work well unless it is a platformer that requires precise input timing like Celeste.
Gaming is only half of what I use it for, the other half I use it as a cheap way to use my T.V. in the living room to RDC into my computer. The Steam Link has a few USB slots that can be used for a keyboard/mouse combo and I can use my PC from the living room to do anything not just play games.
I picked it up when it was on sale for $19.99 and at that price point I've gotten more than my money's worth out of it.
We use the Steam Link frequently. It works great for getting games like JackBox 2, JackBox 3, etc. from a PC upstairs to the big TV connected to the stereo speakers downstairs in front of the couches. With a game like JackBox you often have 6 or 8 people playing and more watching so it would be ridiculous to just stand in front of a PC. But with Steam Link connected to our 65" main TV and just a USB based controller plugged into the Steam Link - woohoo! I guess they just didn't sell enough of them to keep the company interested in it. From the posts here most people who use them are happy with them.
I got one for free when I bought a Steam controller. I'm not so impressed with the controller, but I use the Link all the time and it works a treat.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It's pretty good, but I rarely use it, because I have a PC in the same room.
"Quietly Discontinues"? What were they supposed to do, spend a quarter million on a full page ad in the New York Times announcing it? They announced it through their normal channels. What more were they supposed to do exactly?
Better known as 318230.
nuff said
I bought the Steam link for two reasons. First, I have multiple people in my home who stream games. Given that requirement and how inexpensive the Steam link was, I would have otherwise needed to spend money on a Nvidia shield, or on HDMI/USB extenders, or on a crappy PC to do Steam in-home streaming to, etc. Second, it has first class support for the Steam controller which we prefer for playing games which don't have proper controller support. We are planning to use ours until they break, and when they do will probably go with one of the other alternatives I just mentioned, depending on what looks to be the best option when that time comes. The steam link is easily replaceable. I will on the other hand, be really sad when I can't find a replacement for my Steam controller. And as an off-topic thought this also reminds me of, I still haven't forgiven Logitech for discontinuing the G400/MX518.
Buy up the rest and then resell them at a much higher price.
Now's your chance!
Valve is a company that struck accidental gold with it's distribution platform, but otherwise is totally rudderless and unfocused.
They seem to love to embrace new ideas, push it to production, and just as rapidly drop idea entirely in favor of the next pet project.
could it be a new revision is coming? 4k support for one
It's a bad move. It's a great bit of kit, easy to use, literally got up and running in minutes and playing with a controller on a big TV downstairs (connected via Ethernet and TPLink Powerline Networking at about 800Mbps)
Well worth the investment - unless there's a real motivator, I won't get a console. PC is a Ryzen 2600 with 16GB and 1070 run everything in my Steam library (300+ activated games) , I have a boatload I have not even activated - thanks Humble Bundle!
Unless there's a real motivator, my console gaming stopped at X360.
If they don't want to build it, maybe they might chose to open-source the hardware?
Does anyone know: Are there any ASICs in it, or is it stock hardware parts and a firmware load?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Just for fun, clicked on an old link... and it's on super clearance again.
https://store.steampowered.com...
Beat the rush!
FU Steam, for not letting me stream between subnets. You won't LET ME SPECIFY an IP address. FUCK YOU, I should be allowed to to setup my LAN and subnet route it all I want. Fuckers! You and your proprietary auto-discovery bullshit can shove it!
Life is not for the lazy.
A company that started out as a game developer, then put DRM on it, then switched to being a pure DRM distributor.
I'm so glad there are alternatives.
Wow, are all those positive opinions posted by some marketing bots? There is a lot of issues with that box. I stopped using mine because it was not reliable at all and if it happen to work from time to time it, eventually, stoped during gameplay and spoiled all the fun. I was playing a lot with the network settings but without success. I've accepted slight lag and compromised video quality but if transmission just freezes - sometimes after 2 minutes, sometimes after 30 it is super frustrating. There is a lot of evidence on forums, e,g, on Steam forum, proving that people have a lot of problems with it. One might think that this is wifi issues, but it appears that a lot of people suffer from the same on the cable.