Hey, my SteamLink still works

Do you remember Steam Link? Odds are, probably not. It was a
brief-lived hardware device released by Valve in the mid 2010s; a sort
of cheaper alternative to the even shorter-lived 'Steam Machine' PCs
that ran an early version of SteamOS. The latter devices weren't made
by Valve directly; they were a partner program between Valve and
various PC OEMs (Alienware, Falcon Northwest, etc). in an attempt to
jump-start gaming on Linux.


   [The whole escapade itself was a direct reaction to
    Microsoft releasing an app store on Windows 8, which
    threatened Steam's hegemony. Steam Machines were Valve
    saying, 'try to encroach on PC gaming, Microsoft, and
    we'll pull the whole market over to Linux, you just see
    if we don't.' When the Microsoft App store proved such
    a dismal flop, Valve felt safe in backing away.]


The SteamLink devices, though, were much simpler machines. With a slow
1GHz ARM processor, it was intended as a full-fledged computer but as
a set-top box that would stream games from a PC in another room to the
big screen TV in the living room. All it really let you do was run
Steam and games, and it required you to have a fairly hefty gaming PC
somewhere else nearby. It's main advantage was it's cost; it sold for
$50. Assuming you already did own a solid gaming rig, it was an
inexpensive way to get your games to the living room without having to
move your whole PC (with all the associated wiring and noise) out of
the study.

Steam Link --and indeed, the whole Steam Machines concept-- never
really caught on amongst gamers. The Steam Machines themselves were
too expensive and too underpowered to justify themselves, and
SteamLink never really found a market. I guess people who owned PCs
beefy enough to run games and stream it over the local network either
weren't interested in playing on the couch, or had the dosh to just
buy a second dedicated computer for that purpose. Steam Machines
disappeared from the Steam storefront in 2018, and SteamLink was
discontinued shortly afterwards.

Not before I got my hands on one, though. In the trailing days of the
device, they could be picked up for $5 USD, and I grabbed one at that
price. I never really _did_ anything with it though; I had no need. My
PC was already hooked up to a big-screen TV. But it was just too good
a deal to not take advantage of.

I was impressed with the hardware --and the packaging!-- but after a
few months of it hanging off the back of the living room computer, I
packed it away and there it say, all but forgotten in the back of the
Closet Of Old Hardware. Until today when, on a whim, I got it back
out.

I honestly didn't expect it to work. It's been seven years since I
touched the thing, and I assumed that either the hardware would have
failed, or the back-end software (e.g., Steam) would no longer be
compatible. But no; I plugged the thing in and it cheerfully came to
life. A few updates later (the latest released just a few weeks ago!),
and it was ready to go.

I paired the device with one of my older PCs (an old i5 with a GeForce
770 that I mainly keep around because it has hot-swappable drive bays
that makes it really useful for wiping/formatting old hard-drives) and
fired up "Alien Isolation". It ran a treat; except for the briefest
flash of the server's desktop when it first started, there was no
evidence that the game wasn't running in the same room. No compression
artifacts, no latency that I could tell. The little SteamLink device
didn't even get warm from the effort.

Which is to say, I'm _still_ impressed with the hardware. It's an
eminently capable little device.

With that said though, it became pretty obvious that -by the end of
the day- the thing was likely to end up back in its box in the closet
again. I just don't NEED it for what it does. If I ever really want to
play PC games regularly in the living room, I have the spare hardware
to just attach a proper PC. The fact that I'd have to keep a separate
PC running -probably all the time, on the off chance I'd want to
suddenly want to play- in the backroom doesn't endear me to the
SteamLink either. As much as I love the little device, it's an answer
to a problem I just don't have.

Still, props to Valve for still supporting the SteamLink six years
after they stopped selling it. I have to admit, I was surprised to see
it still working, and that simple joy made the effort of dusting off
the device worth it.