Valve is making microSD cards the next game cartridges

Steam Deck changed the way I buy and play games. Just as the Nintendo Switch wowed me by allowing me to play Nintendo’s latest and greatest games on the go and on my TV, Steam Deck won me over with how it offered a huge catalog of PC games that I could play portable or on a big screen. And with the Steam Deck’s microSD card slot, I can add more storage just by inserting a microSD card, which means I can bring more games with me on the device.

But with the new Steam Machine PC and Steam Frame VR headset, Valve is about to make any microSD cards you use with the Steam Deck even more useful. Like the Steam Deck, both devices also run Valve’s Linux-based SteamOS operating system, and both have microSD card slots as well. So, if the microSD card you plugged into your Steam Deck is SteamOS formatted, any games you’ve stored on it will be immediately visible by the Steam Machine and Steam Frame as well.

when Steam machine and Steam frame Launching in early 2026, microSD card support means you’ll be able to take the hardware out of the box, pop in your microSD card from your collection, and start playing most of your games without having to download them again. There may be differences in how well games run across the three devices due to their different specifications. But many games will likely run well on all of them, which means you’ll be able to drop your microSD card into whatever device you want to use and start playing.

Essentially, your microSD card will act almost like an old game cartridge, but instead of being limited to one piece of hardware or one game, you can easily bring as many games as can fit on the card to whatever SteamOS PC you’re using at the time.

However, Valve only builds UHS-I card readers into these devices. UHS-I is slow Compared to the latest microSD cards or internal SSD drives. They may not be able to keep up With every game you want to play, even if most of them load fine. Meanwhile, Nintendo has already moved to support the much faster microSD Express format with the Switch 2 (although it has also backtracked by introducing Switch 2 cartridges that are both “switch” and It doesn’t actually contain games).

“SD cards are known for low performance, but from our testing and experience, they work really well,” said Yazan Al-Dahyat, Valve hardware engineer. Edge While showing us the Steam machine at Valve headquarters. “For most people, the option makes the most sense, in our opinion.

When asked to clarify the microSD reader’s specifications, Al-Dahiyat added: “What we’re trying to emphasize here again is that we really want the Steam Machine to be a very easy-to-use, very convenient device” that you can just plug it in, log in to, and start playing games on it.

It’s a key part of what makes Valve’s new hardware feel like part of a cohesive ecosystem, and it may be an important feature because Enters the console wars.