There are too many ways to play video games these days. It’s a shame that you can play them however you want, especially when you’re dealing with different hardware platforms coupled with different screens. However, there are ways to fill this gap; one of them is Nvidia’s Shield TV, which allows users to stream PC games into their living room. However, the company has announced that it is backing away from providing this key connection next year.

Shield owners were notified this week that Nvidia will end its GameStream service sometime in February. A software update will disable this feature.

GameStream works with PCs that have a GeForce GTX card or better, powering any titles that the GPU can optimize for Shield TV reception at resolutions up to 4K in HDR and 60fps.

The company is promoting Valve’s Steam Link as a direct alternative to use – although with the fragmentation of distribution portals, local streaming access to games from 2K, Epic and the like is a bit more difficult, if not impossible. Nvidia also offers server game streaming and a library of games through GeForce Now, but all sessions are time-limited and 4K streaming costs $20 per month.

However you slice the cake, it’s still a big bummer that GameStream is going offline, because for some people it was their best choice out of a bunch of mediocre options in terms of how they played the games they paid good money for. .