While many people are trying to outdo Valve in making a better, cheaper Steam Machine, one PC user has found a way to bring back cartridge gaming. Now, nothing against Nintendo’s continued support of the older media, but it doesn’t quite equate to the full PC experience where more powerful hardware may be present with a fully customized setup. Jibril-sama has posted their ingenious idea of repurposing old 2.5″ SSDs into new enclosures with custom printed labels, a dock, and some minor software tweaks to make a cartridge game system. The following is from the Redditor (via Tom’s Hardware):
“Got a couple of used 2.5” SSDs for cheap so I decided to make a Game Cartridge system,”
– Jibril-sama
Steam Game Cartridges
byu/Jibril-sama inpcmasterrace
“Games are actually on those SSDs with a script to auto-navigate Steam to the game’s page. Auto-starting the game right away is also possible,” adds Jibril-sama. Most PC users are aware of the frightening state of memory and storage prices, but more than a few of us probably have some 128GB drives, or maybe even 256GB for those larger game installs, sitting around. The Redditor also states how they obtained the drives for this project for ~$8 each, so folks interested in making their system may try to score a few for themselves. Another perk of this concept is freeing up space on their main gaming drives while also still getting acceptable SATA III speeds, which can support the needs of many games even in 2026. Tom’s Hardware reached out to Jibril-sama regarding how they configured the setup and was told the following:
“All it needs is a systemd template to check for a script on the SSD and launch it. And a udev rule to trigger the system, 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.”
– Jibril-sama
Discussion (5 replies)
Join Discussion →Total thumbs up to this person for elegance in simplicity and a great way to use old hardware that would otherwise probably be disposed of.
With the price of things today you have to be rich for that kind of flex.
Cool aestetics exercise and all that, but reminds me how for many years I thought industry would worry about more permanent storage, write once read many, permanently etching things in stronger substrates , not exposed, things of this nature.
Of course for further permanency agreements need to be made as file types to remain readable, so keepers of software need to carry this ability for decades and think in terms of centuries things like this.
Nothing like this is happening, yes theres some stuff, not much, weak and expensive.
I agree - pretty cool here. I'm kinda surprised physical distribution stuck with CDs and didn't move to this route, but I guess it kinda died before it had the chance to make the technology shift (despite the internet cries going out to Sony lately - the vocal minority).
It's funny, how when things go the corporations way then the so called vocal minority doesn't matter and has no power, but when some of their actions or releases are received poorly then it's all the vocal minority's fault for hating on it. Schödringer's minority more like it. They both hold no power and have all the power depending on the outcome.
The fact is that just because the people who do speak out is a minority, it does not mean that the silent majority isn't also on their side.