Valve has announced that it’s expanding its Steam Link game-streaming feature in a big way with Steam Link Anywhere, a new service that will allow you to stream your Steam games from your computer to anywhere in the world through Steam Link hardware or the Steam Link app.
It’s a big change from the current Steam Link app, which used to only let users stream games within their own homes. This new expansion makes Steam Link a far more powerful feature — combined with the Android app (sadly, the iOS app is still being blocked by Apple), Steam Link Anywhere in theory will let users stream games from their PC to play anywhere they have internet service.
According to Valve, Steam Link Anywhere is in early beta, but users can already try it out by downloading the new Steam Link beta build 688 on their gaming PC. The company says that the only requirements for Steam Link Anywhere are a good upload connection for the host computer, and a good network connection for the device you’re playing on.
Right now, only Android, Raspberry Pi, and the discontinued Steam Link hardware work with Steam Link Anywhere, but it’s easy to imagine that Steam could add a similar feature for streaming from PC to PC like it already offers with the in-home Steam Link.
The timing of the announcement is also significant: Steam is planting a flag for game streaming just ahead of GDC 2019, where Google is widely expected to take the wraps off its new Project Stream-powered streaming gaming service at an event on March 19th. With Google expected to make a big push for game streaming — possibly even announcing its own gaming hardware for the first time — Steam’s announcement seems to be an indication that it’s not willing to cede the space without a fight.
Google isn’t the only competitor Steam has here, either: Microsoft just showed off new in-home game streaming from PC to Xbox consoles that looks a whole lot like the existing Steam Link functionality. And Microsoft’s upcoming xCloud game-streaming service looks poised to challenge both Steam and Google in the broader game-streaming space.
Comments
2019 is a good time to be a gamer!
By Iamnew on 03.14.19 1:46pm
How do you leave out GeForce NOW as THE streaming service to beat? PC and NVIDIA Shield only, for now.
By ralphwiggum1 on 03.14.19 1:50pm
I’ve been using Parsec for PC to Laptop streaming – it’s been working great so far. Best of all, hardware agnostic and free!
By npeep- on 03.14.19 3:11pm
Geforce NOW is NVDIA’s fully cloud streaming gaming which lets you play your Steam library, as well as games from UPlay, Epic, and Origin (maybe?), similar to Microsoft’s xCloud and Google’s Project Stream, and they don’t require you to have your own gaming PC. Streaming your games from your PC types include: NVIDIA’s GameStream (and moonlight), Steam Link, AMD Link, and Parsec. Good to know Parsec works well (and is manufacturer/software agnostic), but do you think hardware specific (or OS specific) streaming solutions may end up working better due to lower level access to hardware?
By ralphwiggum1 on 03.14.19 4:00pm
Maybe it depends on your circumstances and the type of game you play? Unfortunately, I live in a country where game streaming services are not available and are unlikely to prioritize.
I play Oxygen Not Included, Factorio, and Frostpunk, and I’ve had a pretty good overall experience with Parsec + AWS for about a year or so. I game at three places, where I have access to different devices: A) 2015 13" Macbook Pro; B) Nvidia Shield TV; C) Raspberry Pi B+.
I don’t need to buy or maintain my own hardware, and the price is hard to beat at around US$0.38/hour (2.2xlarge) plus around $5.00/month for storage. I spent around $280 from Mar 2018 to Mar 2019. Performance-wise, there is the occasional compression artifacts and lag when my local network acts up, but it’s not really an issue for the games I play.
I don’t expect Google or Microsoft’s to offer a much better experience in terms of actual gaming (FPS and twitch gamers will have a whole different perspective), but they will probably offer better UX and hopefully cheaper prices. If they require their own boxes, there’s also the added benefit of interesting peripherals.
By nominized on 03.15.19 3:10am
It’s great that Valve is starting to get some worthy competitors in different aspects of gaming.
It really feels like they’ve been dragging their feet lately. Maybe some good competition will finally get them off their asses and motivate them to actually get a sense of momentum and realize some of the potential that is bound up in all the talented people that work there.
By Jaycobie on 03.14.19 1:50pm
I feel like I’ve been waiting for this forever. Finally.
By Paul_M on 03.14.19 1:52pm
Yessssss…. no longer having to deal with the overhead of connecting to my VPN first to use In Home Streaming.
By Christopher Hansen on 03.14.19 2:10pm
I bought the Steam Link hardware for $1 or $2 about a year ago. I think they were trying to get rid of inventory.
By ABlazinBlueToe on 03.14.19 2:24pm
How the heck did Playstation get theirs through?
By phspman on 03.14.19 2:36pm
Apple changed store rules in June of last year and Valve has not resubmitted its app.
By Peteostro on 03.14.19 2:41pm
I’m expecting Google’s service to be: Stream games that run on our servers.
Steam’s service is stream games that you run yourself.
One is super plug & play, you can be playing a game in 30 seconds and you only need an inexpensive machine capable of streaming. The other requires buying, installing games on a fairly expensive PC and then being able to stream it.
If that’s the case, I don’t see those as being competition.
By frankiboi on 03.14.19 2:46pm
Yeah, no. I’ve been using Steam Link in my own home and the input lag is unacceptable. I don’t see any company getting latency comparable to playing on the actual PC.
By hsxp on 03.14.19 2:59pm
I’ve been using a Steam Link for a while – the Steam Link itself is wired whereas my PC is wireless – and I’ve found it depends enormously on which game I’m playing. PUBG is essentially unplayable, Destiny 2 is extremely unplayable, while Grim Dawn, Deus Ex and Pillars of Eternity 2 have been running incredibly well with virtually no latency at all. No idea why there’s such discrepancy though.
By ivarhill on 03.14.19 3:31pm
Have you tried parsec? I’ve had really low latency on local network and even been able to play from across different states.
By Price0 on 03.14.19 5:29pm
This has always been available with the right setup. Nice to see they’re making it easier. Hopefully my existing Steam Link device will work with this change. Regardless, I’ve been streaming my games PC over the internet from GeForce to an Android app called Moonlight. My PS4 had Remote Play. Steam is late to the party. Google must have them worried.
By Daniel Dennis on 03.14.19 4:16pm
This is something i have wanted for awhile so this will be nice to have. Too bad most people will not have the upload speed required for this to work well.
By xxkachoxx on 03.14.19 9:09pm