
Valve discontinues the Steam Link - Tomte
https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/11/19/18103672/valve-discontinues-steam-link-streaming-set-top-box
======
regnerba
Have two of these, and a few Steam controllers, and god damn they are one of
the best devices I own. My wife and I play games from the couch or bed all the
time together.

Both of ours are hard wired, not wireless, and never had a problem with the
streaming. Actually thats not true. After a windows update of some kind,
possibly directx, all Unity based games failed to launch for about a week.
Then back to normal.

The Steam controllers are not as awesome in my opinion, much preferred my Xbox
controllers.

These things are awesome for when friends are over. Wish there was more games,
but there are still a solid number of games that are great for the couch.
Jackbox party packs, Tricky Towers, Tower Fall, Sonic All Stars Racing, Party
Panic, Hell Divers, Overcooked, and the list goes on. Sooooo many good games
and I got to keep them all in my Steam library without having to buy another
console and rebuy games.

~~~
ctack
How do they work?

I know what Steam is, but I can't fathom what this gadget actually does and
what value it adds.

~~~
cheald
It's almost like a Chromecast for your games. It connects to your main
computer on your network and can manage Steam remotely. Starting a game
streams the audio and video from the game from your gaming computer to your
TV, and returns input back to it, effectively letting any TV in your house
become a gaming console if you already have a games-capable machine. Their
Steam Link app does similar, except to your phone rather than to a TV.

~~~
goldenkey
Chromecast and all the other IPV4/6 based wireless HDMI are really intensive
and saturate your LAN. I have a wireless HDMI that uses directional infrared
and it's quite performant with no resource contention issues.

~~~
washadjeffmad
That sounds like a really neat device. In lieu of that, I segregate traffic
with VLANs by SSID at home, which helps prevent mDNS spikes and other
inconveniences from disrupting the rest of the network.

It's pretty common for people to buy into IoT without preparing their
networks, and there's no networking hardware that I know of that's a seamless
experience for managing what having an IoT integrated home brings.

I guess Ubiquiti's Unifi line is pretty close, but it's not what I'd imagine a
plugnplay "Google Hub" automated router/switch with SDN manageable from
Assistant.

Although, I haven't used Google WiFi, so I don't know if it already works like
that.

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jchw
I'm super sad Valve seems to be failing in hardware. Their Steam hardware,
including machines and controllers, is actually really nice in my experience
and it might serve as yet another instance where developing a good product
doesn't necessarily translate into sales or long term success.

~~~
dexwiz
Steam machines are an interesting inverse of the normal console where a large
established company makes a standardized piece of hardware and partner with
publishes and studios to fill out a catalog of software. Steam instead was a
huge catalog of software that asked computer companies to create specialized
hardware.

Unfortunately their target audience also claims to be the PC Master Race. Its
a bit like trying to sell Disco to the Punks.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Looking at the Linux gaming landscape now compared to what it was like before
Steam machines the difference is night and day. Of course there is still more
work to do in this area but I'd say they achieved what they set out to do -
reduce Microsoft's dominance in PC gaming and create some real competition.

~~~
pjmlp
Linux gaming market on Steam is around 1%, hardly anything to bother about,
let alone reduce Microsoft's dominance in PC gaming.

Google, Apple, Nintendo and Sony are the only ones that matter regarding PC
gaming versus alternatives.

~~~
jchw
I don't think Valve's imperative was to dethrone Microsoft at all, it was to
introduce alternatives to Windows, which poses an existential threat to Steam
with Windows Store. To that effect, Steam coming to Mac was probably a bigger
deal, but even still, I think Steam for Linux and Proton were pretty big
deals. The public is watching, largely with skepticism before Steam for Linux
was announced, but now there's a legitimate chance newer games, sometimes even
fairly high-end games, can get released for Linux on launch - something that
used to only happen for a select few games by companies that did it for fun,
like Unreal Tournament or most things from iD Software.

Steam also now offers me a platform where I can buy cross-platform software
once and use it anywhere. I consider this to be fairly valuable, and it makes
me a lot less likely to buy software on Windows Store or Mac App Store.

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eikenberry
This is terrible. We own 2 links and they are great. Stream games from our
computers to our living room. My son loves it. I guess we'll need to figure
out a small Linux box to duplicate this. Wonder if a RasberryPi could do it.

I really hope this has no impact on Streaming in general, it is one of Steam's
best features.

~~~
deorder
If they stop supporting it and you have a Nvidia GPU you can always use
Moonlight:

[https://moonlight-stream.com/](https://moonlight-stream.com/)

Moonlight can do 4k at 120fps and supports HVEC / H.265.

You can run Moonlight on a RPi and achieve 1080p at 60fps and 5.1 audio
without much trouble. Sadly a RPi cannot do HVEC encoding using hw.

~~~
dvdgsng
> Sadly a RPi cannot do HVEC encoding using hw.

Do you know any small formfactor SoC that can, by any chance? Might be a good
intermediate upgrade while waiting for decent AV1 hardware to arrive.

~~~
BlackLotus89
Odroid c2
[https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-c2/](https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-c2/)
Only with the non-mainline kernel thought

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JackuB
I’m using Steam Link that’s built into my smart TV. Way superior as it
supports 4K and 50mbps stream. The original physical Link is catching dust on
the shelf. It’s quite okay setup with a headless gaming PC. You have to use a
remote desktop from time to time to click on some system dialog, so it’s not a
100% console-like experience.

~~~
dindresto
What kind of TV has built-in Steam Link? :o

~~~
Trellmor
There is an app for Android TV
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.valvesoftw...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.valvesoftware.steamlink)

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kawsper
I have one plugged to our TV, and it was great fun to play games on.

Yeah, some games were buggy, and some games didn't work, but for the ones that
did, it was great! I had some nice times playing Rocket League with my dad on
cough, it brought us back to the Halo 3 days when we would play on the Xbox
360.

It seems like the developers didn't embrace it, as games supporting the Steam
Link was lacking a bit.

~~~
AHTERIX5000
What do you mean by games supporting it, I thought the idea was Steam Link
acting transparently?

~~~
regnerba
From my experience, it only ever game down to if the games supported
controllers well enough. Although as I mentioned in another comment, there was
about a one week period where all Unity based games would just crash when
launching. All other games fine. Unity games broken. Then fine a week later.

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cyberjunkie
This never came to India and I had it on my wishlist all this while. I'm upset
Valve is discontinuing it.

Fortunately, I used Moonlight on my Raspberry Pi using this Kodi addon -
[https://github.com/dead/script.moonlight](https://github.com/dead/script.moonlight)

~~~
forgot-my-pw
It's not the best device. Sometimes we get controller issues (3rd party). Some
games don't support controllers at all. It doesn't feel like the full console
experience at all.

It's basically just a remote desktop / streaming device.

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ergo14
I don't get the article, more and more vendors support steam link as an
application for TV itself so its not like streaming is being phased out, it is
being built in instead.

~~~
pdpi
I don’t want that, though. I actively want a dumb tv and a bunch of boxes — My
smart tv is unplugged from the internet and I’m using it as a dumb tv, because
the software just sucks. Hopefully steam link will show up on iOS soon.

~~~
majewsky
Same here. I had a Smart TV for a year and it was absoutely abhorrent. I sold
it and got a 40" monitor for my PC instead. The PC actually boots faster than
the TV did.

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BuckRogers
This is one of Valve's worst decisions. This device is a gem. I use it in
uncapped bandwidth mode (lowest latency) with 8 thread CPU encoding (for the
crispest image with fast motion) from my desktop and it's perfect. I've been
having exceptional results with it ever since it launched. I never used wifi
with it, as I'm old enough that I'm from the era where I don't believe that
civilized people should use wifi with anything except laptops and phones.

People keep saying it can't do 4K and that's what the specs say, but it can
indeed do 4K. Valve has done a lot of great updates to it over the years to
enable features like that. There is no good replacement for these, a FireTV
can sideload the app but you'll be doing every update manually. Nvidia has
ShieldTV, but you have to use their GPUs to stream to it, so no using your
random Intel powered laptop for lightweight and fun co-op games. Or AMD
powered Macbook if you wanted to. Those also don't have the option for CPU
encoding on the host, you have to use NVENC which is inferior. I would only
use hardware encoding if I only had more of an old timey 4-core, 8-thread CPU.

I bought another one with this sale, but will be keeping an eye out for a true
replacement. My hope is that Amazon gets the SteamLink App in their Appstore
so we can get auto updates on their platform.

ShieldTV is the only real alternative today, but with the limitations noted
above. If you've been more of a SteamLink power user like me who really likes
to tweak the experience and get the most out of it, there's no clear successor
yet other than a HTPC as the decoder or rummaging the market for some random
Android media device. I'm holding on to my SteamLink until Amazon gets the
SteamLink App in their store. Then I'll continue to hold onto it until it
dies.

Terrible move by Valve. They had this one model, one little device that I
could flatly recommend to everyone, and it wasn't hurting their megacorp. This
is one of those things that doesn't make you rich, but it's an essential
product offering. It's value to what Steam is can't be favorably calculated by
bean counters. They're already booted out of the iOS Appstore, and they're not
in Amazon's yet, and they would need to ensure the SteamLink App works perfect
on both ecosystems to discontinue this. Unless you are really slopping things
together, using wifi or have a failing router/switch, the SteamLink just
worked.

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wink
One of the few tech purchases I've greatly regretted.

I don't doubt it works as advertised - but if I wanted to play games in my
living room I'd use a console. The type of games I play would need mouse and
keyboard, so why would I lug those to another room? So yeah, it doesn't solve
THIS kind of problem :)

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LeonidBugaev
Not sure why it even called wireless gaming, since in my experience you have
to introduce even more wires. Both computer and device have to be connected to
ethernet if you want lag free experience. I'm so happy with my current setup,
when I just plug HDMI to my laptop, and use either wireless PS4 or Switch
controllers with it.

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apatters
What a shame, I was looking forward to picking one of these up the next time I
went back to the US. Seems like I may have to bite the bullet and accept that
my Raspberry Pi, while a fun gadget, is not a substitute for a full fledged
HTPC. Any recommendations on a HTPC which I can use to dual boot Win/Linux?

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Waterluvian
I've never used mine for games. $20 for a decent desktop mirror is great.

~~~
koala_man
I use mine for both and love that you can just minimize Steam to stream the
desktop and arbitrary non-Steam applications without hacks.

It's one of the most useful gadgets I have.

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Already__Taken
I was hoping the steam link 2 was coming onces I bought a few on sale for 90%
off. I think both on mine cost me less than £5 delivered next day.

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mintplant
Are desktop PCs the primary use case here? I picked up a Steam Link during the
sale, but never ended up using it past some initial messing around. It's easy
enough to simply plug my laptop into the HDMI cable we leave running from the
TV. Maybe if we had multiple TVs—but then, I could just carry my laptop over
to whichever one, anyway...

~~~
ilikehurdles
Yes I’d say they are. Most PC gaming is happening on a desktop form factor and
this helped bring it into other rooms.

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SCdF
Impressive optics too, on the otherwise quiet 20th Anniversary of Half Life's
release...

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rawoke083600
What _exactly_ does it do ? From the article its unclear :/

~~~
pdpi
Literally what it says in the article: Plug it into your tv and play your
steam library from your main PC via in-house streaming. Hence the comparison
to “wireless hdmi”

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metasyn
Eh, I bought one of these on sale during the last big sale and was sorely
disappointed. It was barely usable despite my network streaming video fine.
Your mileage may vary of course, but this review is a little, ahem,
exaggerated.

~~~
calgoo
Yes like others have said, try it with the ethernet cable, that should fix any
streaming issues.

To me the issue is more that the controllers are a bit annoying to use and
there are not that many games that are co-op / local multiplayer and that
support controllers on steam.

~~~
dvdgsng
We've had lots of local-coop fun with 'Salt and Sanctuary', in case you missed
it.

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socceroos
Might be clearing factory lines for the new VR headset?

