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.
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”.
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.
Easy answer. Valve prints money.
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
Same argument could be made for Heroin that is illegal as fuck.
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.
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
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.
This post reminded me that I have a Steam Link. Somewhere.
The hardware that became an app, good thing it has updates yet.
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 it’s supposed to be used for gaming. I’ve had mine since it was first released and have always used it to turn my TV into a PC monitor to watch YouTube and Movies from my bed
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
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
And what are those updates?
Are they adding new features? Patching security? Fix bugs? Or just update their DRM with new encryption codes?
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
If you have proper full continuous deployment infrastructure setup then you can do minor updates of things like dependencies automatically. I’d guess that’s what’s happening here.
Amazing how many products just don’t.
I love this little piece of hardware.
Wow , Valve is really an amazing company!!
