Steam Game Cartridges Are Very Cool, But Very Pricey

A PC gamer with a love of physical cartridges has built a unique game loading system for their Steam library. Upcycling some old 2.5-inch SATA SSDs, they built game cartridges for individual games, loading the game itself and a boot script onto the internal SSD so it boots as soon as the cart is plugged in.

Reddit user u/Jibril-sama wrote that they had a couple of used SATA SSDs, so they decided to make a cartridge system for their Steam games. In the short post, they showcase a number of cartridges they made, with a small SATA dock. To launch a game, they just plug the custom-made cart in, and the game reportedly starts up straight away.

u/Jibil-Sama told Tom’s Hardware that the system runs Linux and Valve’s Steam URL Protocol to navigate to the game’s page or launch it as required.

“So basically: Plug in SSD > udev rule sees the event > triggers the systemd daemon > systemd daemon looks into the SSD and finds the script > execute the script,” they explained.

They did admit that updates, especially really large multi-gigabyte ones, weren’t easy to manage, but they mostly used the system to play older games they only wanted to pull out now and again.

Although such a system is far less practical than just booting the game from Steam, it’s cool that the files are all held locally, making it functional even offline. It also makes it easier to travel with your game collection. Less physically practical, but no big download at the other end when you’ve reached your destination.

The only potential issue is cost, as storage prices have risen dramatically in recent months due to global memory shortages. Fortunately, small 128GB and 256GB SSDs are still under $40 each, and you can find secondhand ones on eBay for even less.

It’ll still be close to double the price of any games you put on them, but for that physical-game feel in 2026, this might be the closest we get to the days of yore.