Steam Link Set Top Box, want a preview?

Valve is poised to shake things up in the latter half of this year when it seems they plan to release a number of game changing devices (take this as literally as you like). One of these is the Steam Link set top box which will allow you to use in-home streaming in your living room. This allows you to play all your games on steam from your couch, with potentially all the bells and whistles as the Steam Link has 3 USB ports for keyboard, mouse and controller input.

 

Unfortunately at this stage, only Windows PCs can be hosts for in-home streaming, so someone like myself with an iMac (yes, I'm one of those... whatever they are to you :) ) as my primary computer will have to use Boot Camp (or on other OSes dual boot with your favourite boot loader) and boot into Windows. I'm actually a little surprised that Microsoft hasn't capitalised on this sort of concept with the advantage they have across their ecosystem with Windows and extending the Windows gaming experience in support of the Xbox One and 360 as some sort of living room end-point. Although someone at Microsoft might argue it'll have adverse effects on the bottom line of Xbox, you could equally argue more people would buy the thing as this adds a useful feature. Even Apple could get in on the act if they took the Apple TV a little more seriously and enabled it for peripherals (MFi Game Controllers, like the SteelSeries Peripherals), really beyond gimmicks like the ATV3 setup and bluetooth keyboard, it doesn't offer anything else.

 

Now if you want a little preview of what this could be like, which is no doubt the reason you're here, am I right? You're going to need an Android Set Top Box that has a bit of grunt, Google Play and an nVidia GF series card that supports GameStream, and some compatible games. Keep in mind your mileage may vary, there are almost as many different Android STBs as there are dog breeds, and if you've gone cheap on your network hardware, that may cause you headaches. The app you want to make this happen is called Limelight, you can get it here if you're rooted, or here if you're not.

 

To make life easy, from this point on I've copied and pasted the instructions for you, if you have any issues, there are some troubleshooting tips on the store pages for both versions of the app.

 

Instructions:
1. Make sure GeForce Experience is installed, updated, and that you've scanned for games.
2. In most cases, your PC will show up automatically in the PC list. Click the entry in the PC list to start pairing.
3. On your PC, enter the PIN displayed on the Android device and accept the pairing dialog.
4. Choose your PC in the PC list and the app list will be displayed where you can select a game to stream.