Exactly. The ONLY point of these consoles is to play physical copies of games you still own. Otherwise just buy a mini PC and USB controllers that match the originals and call it a day. Going halfway like this makes it useless to both niches.
But it’s not the original thing. It’s missing a core feature. So it is emulation.
But if you’re buying a retro console just to emulate half the games, why not emulate the whole thing and just buy a modern USB version of the controller?
What’s the point? If you’re gonna alter the OG equipment to such an extreme extent like removing the CD drive, then you’re not going to play original copies on it anyways. Might as well just run an emulator.
Install steam. Run in big picture mode. Done. That’s a steam machine. I don’t get what you think a dedicated machine is going to do any differently. There is a reason Steam abandoned the idea themselves.
A lot ship with Linux. And having a full PC you can use is a downside? So you’d rather have a limited box? That’s not even valves philosophy, so I don’t know where you’re getting that BS from.
It’s called a Mini PC or a NUC. They already exist. Go buy one and slap Steam on it. Done.
The people who actually want this have already done it.
They already exist. They’re called mini PCs or NUCs. Just buy one of those and you’re already there. Literally. This whole article and thread is garbage. They already exist. They just aren’t branded Steam.
That’s a lot of fancy words to say “so you can emulate your games”. Which is our point: if you can’t play your OG games and are gonna be emulating those anyways, no one gives a shit if it has an OG chip anymore. We’re gonna have to emulate anyways, any might as well do it with better shaders, graphics, control, etc than on this custom built, one use only, emulator.