Way back in 2015, Valve announced a multi-pronged initiative to make it easier to get PC games on a user’s TV or in another room in the house. One way to do this was through the Steam Link, a streaming box that uses a Steam account to take inputs and stream back video of a game so players who didn’t like sitting at a computer could still engage with their Steam library. Now, after several years on the market, Valve is quietly discontinuing the product and depleting its remaining stock.
The news comes from a concise post on the Steam forums by senior software engineer Sam Lantinga, stating that the hardware is almost completely gone from Europe and North America and not explicitly announcing intentions to replenish it. He finishes the three-sentence post by talking about the company’s intention to support the Steam Link app, a software-based alternative to the Steam Link that is not supported on Apple mobile devices.
If you have been waffling on whether to get a Steam Link, you better make a final decision quickly, as it does not seem like there will be any way to get a brand new one after this. Valve has had the hardware on firesale fairly often, occasionally selling it for a single dollar and shipping when bought with other games that were also not particularly expensive. Those that have a Steam Link can still expect Valve to support it in the future, but who knows for how long that will remain true.
I ordered one during a dollar sale and I believe someone took it from my apartment building’s mailroom. I wasn’t overly broken up about it.
