Valve’s Steam Link box (which lets you stream your PC library to another TV or monitor in a different room in your house) is cheap as chips right now, going for a mere 2 / $2.50 in the Steam Intergalactic Summer Sale. That’s a whopping 95% off. It would almost be rude not to, really.

(more…)

Apple have rejected the iOS version of Valve’s Steam Link app, the doodad which lets people play their Steam games on pocket telephones and digislates, after initially approving it. Valve have appealed the rejection and been shot down, so this is probably the end unless Apple have a change of heart. If you’ve been hoping to park in bed playing Slay The Spire on your iPad, hard luck. The app is still available on Android doodads, mind. (more…)

Valve’s Steam Link app – a beta version, at least – has rolled out onto Android, with an iOS version soon to follow. Now folks with any kind of modern tablet, phone or other free-roaming screen will be able to play their PC games library anywhere in the house through the power of low-latency video streaming, assuming your home Wi-fi is up to par.

You’ll need a relatively recent phone or tablet to get the most out of this, and ideally a Steam Controller or two (which recently was updated to play nicer with iOS), but at the price of free, it’s hard to complain.

(more…)

When Valve practically started giving away Steam Link boxes for little more than price-of-postage, I assumed that the company was stepping away from the concept of in-home streamed gaming. Today’s announcement suggests the idea is very much alive and well at Valve: soon you’ll be able to play games from your Steam library through most iOS and Android devices via an official and free Steam Link app.

(more…)

Just when you thought Valve’s Steam Link box (which lets you play your PC stuff streamed to your TV in another room) couldn’t get any cheaper than it did a few months ago, Gamestop has the deal of all deals for those in the US right now. Available now for just $5 on its own, it would almost be rude not to, really.

(more…)

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>

Despite not having previously felt as thought I needed one, I picked a Steam Link dirt-cheap in the sales, more out of curiosity than anything else. It’s pretty good – unless you try to use it over WiFi. … [visit site to read more]

Valve invited our mate Ian Video Games to their Steam Dev Days conference this week because “they recognise his genius potential”, or so he’d have you believe. Suspicious sorts have observed that the never-before-mentioned ‘twin brother’ housesitting to water Ian’s plants looks just like him, down to the same red wine stain on his jeans, with a stick-on moustache. Other say that the tweets and photos he’s ‘sending back’ from Seattle look suspiciously like tweets from actual developers who are actually there. No matter. Either way, Valve have been gabbing about prototype new Vive motion controllers, Steam Links included with Samsung televisions, and other Steamstuff. … [visit site to read more]

The first Steam Controllers and Steam Links are being delivered to those who pre-ordered. I received mine on Friday and spent a few moments this weekend playing with them. We’re not yet ready to offer reviews of either, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a nice chat about it. Do you have a Link or a Controller? If so, what do you think?

… [visit site to read more]

I’ve heard good things about Valve’s Steam Controller gamepad from folks who’ve had a play on one, including our John, but I’ve still been sceptical. Can even fancy touchpads with haptic feedback come close to being okay> as a mouse substitute? Watching a new demonstration video from Valve, I must say it looks better than I’d expected.

Oh, also: Valve have announced that it’ll cost 39.99/54,99 /$49.99, as will the in-home game streaming Steam Link box doodad. They’ll launch on November 10th, alongside a round of ‘Steam Machine’ pre-built PCs .

… [visit site to read more]

Sitting down with Valve’s Eric Johnson this morning, one thing seemed to become increasingly clear. Valve, a studio that has arguably been pretty quiet of late (not least with the failure to ship Steam Machines in 2014), is coming to life again. With a slew of announcements at this year’s GDC, the HTC-tech-incorporating VR Vive, a proper announcement of Source 2, in-home streaming tech in Link, available builds of Steam OS, and a final build for their much anticipated controller, you could almost forget that none of them is a game. While Graham was being pulled into a virtual world, I had a play with the controller on games running on a couple of Steam Machines, on some rather enormous televisions.

So the first thing you want to know: is the controller any good?>

… [visit site to read more]