Redditor builds a physical Steam 'cartridge' system using cheap second-hand SSDs

Reddit user Jibril-sama has built a working physical game cartridge system for Steam, using old 2.5-inch SSDs as the cartridges themselves. The post on r/pcmasterrace has racked up over 17,000 upvotes and nearly a thousand comments since going up on July 15.

Each 128 GB SSD holds a single Steam game alongside a small script. When the drive is slotted into a dock on the desk, the script auto-navigates Steam to that game's library page using Valve's Steam browser protocol — and can be configured to launch the game immediately. Jibril-sama also made custom colourful housing for each drive featuring the game's cover art, so the whole setup genuinely looks like a cartridge collection. The drives were bought in bulk for around €7 ($8) each — a lucky find from what was likely a refurbishment station clearing out old PCs. Anyone trying to replicate the project right now would pay considerably more, especially with memory prices currently spiking.

The project lands at a pointed moment for digital game ownership. Sony recently announced it will stop producing physical game discs after 2028, a move that prompted Dutch consumer organisation Stichting Massaschade & Consument to file a lawsuit against the company. Chair Lucia Melcherts argued that without physical discs there is no second-hand market and no alternative to the PlayStation Store, leaving Sony in sole control of pricing and access. The broader anxiety isn't limited to PlayStation — when you buy a game digitally on any major storefront, you're purchasing a licence, not the game itself, and that licence can disappear. Sony already removed over 500 films from customers' PlayStation accounts due to a licensing dispute with Studio Canal, Terminator 2 among them. GOG remains a notable exception, offering offline installers that let players genuinely back up their games without depending on a storefront staying online.

The community reaction has been enthusiastic, with one commenter writing "We've officially come full circle. Physical media for PC is back, and it looks gorgeous." Whether or not the SSD cartridge idea scales practically, it captures something real: the appeal of holding a game in your hands hasn't gone away, and for a growing number of players, neither has the worry about what happens when the servers eventually do.