It's Here: Valve Steam Controller, Link, And Steam Machine, Hands-On

[DeadlyDays]

@achoos response

You will need high bandwidth because you neither want to spend the processing power nor the time to compress the video stream of a game now do you? A delay between reading a movie and displaying on your screen is fine, a delay between action being rendered in a game and it being displayed on the screen is not.
Movies/shows/etc get HIGHLY compresses and optimized before being streamed across the network. What this does is send partly compressed/optimized video across the network, basically as much compression as your machine can do on the fly within less that part of a second, then streams it across. Uncompressed 1080p video uses as much or more bandwidth to stream.

So of course you have to have good bandwidth, but a basic home network has at the very least, 100Mbps LAN. Nowadays a lot of people have 1Gbps LAN's, so it isn't a problem unless you are using wireless, but even then you'd have to be 3 generations behind to be using a G network at 54Mbps, because N is 300Mbps, PreN is 150Mps, and AC is like 1300Mbps.

 

[jaber2]

Ok, I can just do that with my PC already, can someone explain to me why I would buy something like this?

 

[DeadlyDays]

You would buy it if you wanted to play your steam games in another room, on another screen, without moving your computer over.
It is basically a console, except it runs Linux(steamOS), and can stream gameplay from your other machines(including windows) over your LAN. Instead of buying the steambox, you can also buy PC parts and build your own and install the same operating system(SteamOS) onto it.

You can use SteamOS as just a normal Linux install and I put Kodi on it for media streaming, and updating firefox for browsing and streaming video on sites that don't have kodi addons.

 

[epobirs]

What may have been misunderstood by readers here is the limitations imposed by powerline networking. For the 85 Mbps generation adapters, 18 Mbps of actual throughput between two points in the house is actually very good, especially if going between upstairs and downstairs with junctures in the wiring that kills performance.

That said, 85 Mbps adapters are very dated. The best case scenario speeds on the newest generation are around gigabit speed and should give you at least twice the throughput in real life. I've seen a few instances where the improved tech gave a huge improvement of four or five times.

 

[Eggz]

Now I'm confused about the vibration.

On the one hand, Tom's is saying this about it:

Things like vibration feedback . . . are not included, [but it is] featured in some way on the DualShock 4 and Xbox One controller.

But here's what the Official Steam Controller Page says:

Haptic force actuators on both sides of the controller deliver precise, high-fidelity vibrations measured in microseconds. Feel the spin of a virtual trackball, the click of a scroll wheel, or the shot of a rifle. Every input, from the triggers to the trackpads, can offer haptic feedback to your fingertips, delivering vital, high-bandwidth, tactile feedback about speed, boundaries, thresholds, textures, or actions.

 

[dstarr3]

Ok, I can just do that with my PC already, can someone explain to me why I would buy something like this?

Well, if you have a gaming PC but you occasionally want to play in the living room, but don't want to put a PC in the living room to do it, the Link is a great, inexpensive option.