Maybe the Steam Link and Controller weren’t as popular as Valve hoped they would be, but damn everyone who still has them seems to love them. Maybe I’m biased because I still have my controller and love it, and I gave away my Steam link because my Deck can do that too, but my friend who received the link is loving it.
I loved my stream controller so much I recently bought a second on eBay
The hardware that became an app, good thing it has updates yet.
Valve being a cool company might be true and all but I think there’s also the real reason that steam makes money by selling games, and making it easy for users to stick to gaming (with steam) ensures ongoing income. Imagine someone who now loves gaming on TV but being annoyed by their broken steam link - what are they going to buy next? A PlayStation and years without a game sold to them.
I swapped over to a Sunshine host (non-NVidia version of Moonlight) + Moonlight client combo for game streaming and it absolutely blew Steamlink out of the water for me. Went from lag, resolution switching and disconnects to buttery smooth on my Pi400 at 1080p.
huh I was using the nvidia shield and switched to sunshine when they shut it down. had heaps of issues then went to steamlink which seemed better. last game I tried was slow as though, maybe I should give sunshine another run
Wow, when they were practically giving those away, I figured they were washing their hands of it. It’s amazing that it’s still being supported.
Think about it though. Probably some overlap with the deck. And hiring one dev very part time to keep this thing alive is nothing for them. Which makes the steam deck way more lucrative
Tell me you don’t know how valve works without telling me you don’t know how valve works.
Mine was $1! I love it. I just bought a wireless mouse and keyboard for it, because it’s honestly just a great way to stream stuff. Now my computer can be in my living room, and my office at the same time!
I just read in Wikipedia that Valve is privately helded.
There must be something magical in the fact that they don’t need to feed their shareholders with mountains of cash every quarter, and actually focus on their customers, as happened in this post.
And the fact is they still make a mountain of cash every quarter, just by focusing on their customers.
I don’t know about that. They run one of the most predatory examples of gambling in gaming.
The new EU ruling really brought to light how big of a problem the CS:GO gambling is.
Is gambling really that bad though? It’s voluntary. Valve isn’t forcing you to buy keys or cases if you don’t want them
It’s addictive. We regulate other addictive things like cigarettes, no reason we shouldn’t put guard rails on gambling. We already do, but I think we’ve got to the end regs in a few areas.
Same argument could be made for Heroin that is illegal as fuck.
Easy answer. Valve prints money.
Fun fact, they used to be public but Gabe took it back private after realizing how shitty it was having to answer to shareholders.
That’s an interesting piece of info
That’s because unlike most other businesses steam understands that if you want people to keep buying your products, you need to provide a decent service
Which is why you can’t buy a Steam Link, amiright?
I use mine regularly, and I would be sad if it completely breaks.
So, a product that has been discontinued doesn’t mean that it needs to lose software support, was the point I was trying to make. It would be nice if they still sold them but still good that the people that own them can continue to use them and are receiving security updates for them.
I think it’s important that companies like google, samsung, apple, etc are held to at least this standard where products don’t need to be changed unless they actually break, rather than forcing software changes that break or reduce effectiveness of the product to try and force the consumer to produce e-waste and buy a new product.
Nothing wrong with wanting new products, however that should be a personal decision made at a personal level by a consumer not one forced onto them by a company who designed products using the planned obsolescence doctrine.
I own and like the steam link, but the reason they don’t sell it anymore is because the steam link app is on most smart devices now, and if your TV doesn’t support it, you can buy a streaming stick that does for like $30, give or take depending on sales. And those devices are more portable (less wires) and more versatile than a steam link.
Any competitive price for the steam link would be less than what Valve can produce them for. Weren’t they selling it for $5 at the end? Pretty sure I picked mine up for $10 or less. Steam can’t show ads to subsidize the price of the hardware like every other smart device does.
the reason they don’t sell it anymore is because the steam link app is on most smart devices now
Not available for Roku or webOS. That’s hardly “most smart devices”.
Do you just plug the controller/mouse/keyboard into the TV USB port?
I’ve never tried, that might work? Connecting via bluetooth works. You can even use the tv remote!
The Steam Link itself has USB ports, the Steam Link apps all use Bluetooth controllers
My steamlink always updates when i power it on. Its like the updates are not persisted anymore.
There is nothing new being added.Ah, the Discord strategy of updates
That’s the thing about Valve. They really know and do software as good as anyone else in the business.
Let’s not pretend alt tabbing a source game was possible pre 2013
But…but…vAlve doEsNt suPpoRt iTs haRdWare
Don’t even need the hardware anymore. The Android app is really good on its own. I can even play games while not on my own home network with minimal lag so long as I am on 5G or wifi. I use it to play a few rounds of Civilization when waiting at the doctor.
This post reminded me that I have a Steam Link. Somewhere.
And what are those updates?
Are they adding new features? Patching security? Fix bugs? Or just update their DRM with new encryption codes?
I bought one during the clearance sale for the price of shipping, assuming that it would be abandoned but maybe still useful as a low-power linux server. I guess I ought to set it up and take advantage of it.
Thanks, Valve, for not letting these things become instant e-waste.
I wish they’d still sell those as hardware units. Same with the Steam controller.
