If you’re familiar with the name EmuDeck, you’re likely a Steam Deck owner looking for an easy and user-friendly way to run emulators on your Steam Deck handheld. Now, one of the coders behind that software suite is dipping their toes into branded gaming hardware with the EmuDeck Machines project, now seeking funding on IndieGogo.
The EmuDeck Machines obviously come with EmuDeck software preinstalled to let users easily “play your retro games from your couch.” But they also promise to let you run games from Steam and other popular PC launchers through the Linux-based, gaming-focused Bazzite OS. The vibe is definitely similar to that of Valve’s own aborted Steam Machines effort from years back, albeit in a less “official” capacity.
“I used to be a PC guy but in the last 20 years I switched to the Mac and in the Apple ecosystem choosing a computer is easy,” project lead DragoonDorise told Ars in an email. “But then I found myself wanting a gaming rig so I started my search and boy oh boy I was lost. The PC industry seems to be trying to trick you every step of the way, gazillions of options, hard to understand what’s good and what’s not. If you are tech savvy it’s not hard, you know what to get and what to avoid. Then it hit me, I made emulation easy with EmuDeck, why not make hardware easy too?”
“The idea behind the EmuDeck Machine is to make hardware easy just as EmuDeck did with software,” DragoonDorise writes on the EmuDeck Patreon. “This is not focused to tech savvy people. It’s for people that want a no-hassle experience, just buy and play,” they added on Reddit.
What’s inside?
The EmuDeck Machines come in two promised configurations. On the low-end EM1 model, a $365 early bird price gets you an Intel N97-based system with 8GB of RAM and no dedicated graphics card. That’s enough to run a game on the order of Hades at a smooth 60 fps and run emulators of systems through the PS2/Wii era.
Upgrading to the $676 EM2 gets you an overclocked Radeon 760M GPU and an upgrade to 16GB of RAM. That promises smooth gaming performance for high-end games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Returnal, according to DragoonDorise, as well as support for PS3 and Xbox 360 emulators. If the Indiegogo project is fully funded, DragoonDorise also promises an optional Docking Station will be made available next year to provide “Radeon 7600” graphics power to the EM2.
Both models come with 512 GB of storage, which can be upgraded with external USB hard drives and a Gamesir wireless controller. It all comes packaged in an 8.6-inch square case that’s clearly inspired by the Sega Dreamcast, with four USB ports where the usual controller ports would be.
Caveat emptor
Though DragoonDorise says they currently only have a “working prototype” of the EmuDeck Machines, the IndieGogo project promises an ambitious schedule where hardware will be shipping by December. “The only thing I’m missing right now is the shell, all the rest is already taken care of, ” DragoonDorise told Ars. “Where I’m gonna get my components, cables, etc. all of that is already spoken for. And the times I posted in IGG are according what my manufacturer told me. If we end up having any delay I’ll just be transparent with my backers.”
Should potential backers worry that a software coder is pivoting to hardware for the first time? “I have experience with distribution as I used to run an online store back in the day selling hundreds of devices per month,” DragoonDorise tells Ars. “I’ve never been in the side of the manufacturer though but you know what? When I started coding EmuDeck the most I knew about Linux was how to change directories and little more and that ended up being a big success because I cared about the project, I believed it could be something that people will love to use. This is the same, my heart is poured in this thing.”
Overall, though, DragoonDorise’s comments make the EmuDeck Machines effort sound more like a fun hobby than an attempt at an ongoing business. “This is a project I’m doing mostly for fun, just like EmuDeck,” they told Ars. “I built a mini ITX PC… and I thought, ‘Hey this is cool, let’s do this,'” they wrote on Reddit. “I’ve always dream[ed] of making a video console, so this it,” they continued in another Reddit comment.
As of this writing, the EmuDeck Machines effort has attracted nearly $13,000 in pledges in just under 24 hours. But DragoonDorise tells Ars he’s making just $50 on each unit sale, and writes on Reddit that they’re “not trying to get rich here with this, I’m not even expecting to make money. I’m doing this because I think [it] is a fun project and I thought people would like it.”
In the Patreon comments, DragoonDorise adds that they tried to make the machines affordable for customers, but that “Indiegogo takes a big cut… they are going to make more money than I will.”
For fans of the EmuDeck software, DragoonDorise also promises on Patreon that work on EmuDeck Machines hardware “doesn’t mean things will change on the software side of EmuDeck, if anything it will bring more features.” In fact, features like CloudSync, ROM Library, and the EmuDecky plugin were added to EmuDeck “because I envisioned the EmuDeck Machine with those features so many months ago,” they write, “and those have ended up being in the regular EmuDeck for every one of you.”
Updated (5:23 pm) to add emailed responses from DargoonDorise
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