Valve is making microSD cards the next game cartridges

The Steam Deck changed the way I buy and play games. Just like how the Nintendo Switch blew me away with how it let me play the latest and greatest Nintendo games on the go and on a TV, the Steam Deck has drawn me in with how it offers a vast catalog of PC games that I can play portably or on a big screen. And with the Steam Deck’s microSD card slot, I can add a lot more storage just by tossing in a tiny memory card, meaning I can bring even more games around with me on the device.

But with its 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 of those devices also run Valve’s Linux-based SteamOS operating system, and both have microSD card slots, too. So if the microSD card you’ve plugged into your Steam Deck is formatted for SteamOS, any games you’ve stored on it will be immediately visible by the Steam Machine and Steam Frame as well.

When the Steam Machine and Steam Frame launch in early 2026, this microSD card support means you’ll be able to take the devices out of the box, slot in your microSD card from your Deck, and start playing most of your games without having to download them again. There might be differences in how well games play across the three devices because of their different specs. But many games will probably work well on all of them, meaning you’ll be able to drop your microSD card into whichever device you want to use and just start playing.

Basically, your microSD card will almost function like an old-school game cartridge, but instead of it being limited to one piece of hardware or one single 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 is only building UHS-I card readers into these devices. UHS-I is slow compared to state-of-the-art microSD or internal SSDs. They may not be able to keep up with every game you want to play, even if most will load fine. Meanwhile, Nintendo has already moved on to supporting the much faster microSD Express format with the Switch 2 (though has arguably also taken a step back by introducing Switch 2 cartridges that are a “key” and don’t actually contain games).

“SD cards are notorious for having low performance, but from our testing and our experience, they actually work really well,” Valve hardware engineer Yazan Aldehayyat told The Verge while showing us the Steam Machine at Valve’s headquarters. “For most people, the option makes the most sense, in our opinion.

When we asked to clarify the spec of the microSD reader, Aldehayyat added, “What we’re trying to emphasize here again is we really want the Steam Machine to be a really easy, super convenient device” that you just plug in, sign into, and start playing games on.

It’s a key part of what makes Valve’s new hardware feel like part of a cohesive ecosystem, and it could be an important advantage as it enters the console wars.