For the past two years, I’ve lived a double life: PC gamer by day, Wii U host by night, stuck playing the same three games. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good Mario Kart session, but eventually you want to pick up something new, or play something other than Nintendo.

Then I heard whispers of Valve’s next-gen SteamOS and the “Steam Machine” reveal, I had a revelation: Why wait for Valve to take my money when I could build my own console and lose my mind in the process? I started by defining my requirements:

• I wanted something portable for events. Lugging a full-tower PC or a Wii U with multiple parts across town is a great way to develop back problems, but a terrible way to enjoy a party.
• It had to be dead simple to use and quick to jump into games.
• Navigation needed to be obvious. If a guest can’t find the game in under ten seconds, the project has failed. I want something simple without the typical console bloat of news feeds or other game related annoyances.

Attempt 1: Office Grade Console

I started where all great ideas begin: with free hardware. I had an old office-grade HP EliteDesk gathering dust. I figured, “Hey, it’s a computer, Bazzite is an OS, what could go wrong?” Everything. As it turns out, Bazzite, the “secret sauce” Linux distro designed to make your PC act like a Steam Deck, has a few requirements. One of those is “not having an ancient Intel chip.” It even lists it as:

I quickly learned that on older hardware, Bazzite doesn’t give you their “Game Mode” feature (Steam’s Big Picture UI), which is one of the main reasons for choosing bazzite. Instead, it just hands you a regular desktop. I insisted on making it work. I wrote a custom script to force Steam to launch in Big Picture mode on startup. It sort of worked… the UI was so choppy it felt like moving through slides on a PowerPoint presentation. Even the games were a disaster, constant frame drops and stuttering. I couldn’t tell if the hardware was dying or if the OS was just rejecting it.

Attempt 2: ChimeraOS

Refusing to admit defeat, I pivoted to ChimeraOS, which is essentially the same concept as Bazzite. It actually booted correctly! I felt like a genius for about ten minutes. Then the crashes started. Input was glitchy, and basic “console” features like connecting a Bluetooth controller or shutting the system down were completely absent. I finally accepted the truth: You can’t turn a 10-year-old accounting PC into a PS5.

Attempt 3: Buying a New System

I threw in the towel and went to Amazon. For about $200, I grabbed a Beelink SER5 mini PC. It’s packed with an AMD Ryzen 5 5500U and 12GB of RAM. Admittedly, I didn’t do a whole lot of research on the perfect specs. I was stuck in between: “Do I want 4K Ray Tracing or a price tag that I could actually afford?” I settled for a balance of both, which in the PC world usually means “it’s okay at everything but great at nothing.” However compared to my HP EliteDesk? This thing was a spaceship. Now that I actually had a compatible CPU, I gave Bazzite one last shot. This time, I selected the “Gaming Mode” image. And miracle of miracles, it booted no problem. Not only did it look like a real console, but I could actually turn the system off from within the. No scripts, no terminal required.

Back on Track

One of the coolest things about Bazzite is that it inherits the Steam Deck’s environment swapping ability. In a click, I can switch from Gaming Mode (the console frontend) to Desktop Mode (a full Linux desktop). This means my “console” is secretly a fully functional PC. I can use it for work, school, or looking up guides on how to complete a game. It’s the ultimate way to justify my purchase. Once the system was stable, I couldn’t just leave it looking “stock.” I wanted that premium, high-end console feel. Enter Decky Loader, a plugin manager that is essentially a tool for people who spend more time customizing their menus than actually playing games. I’ve always been a fan of the PS5’s clean, minimalist UI, so I used Decky to install community-driven themes that mimic that aesthetic. After some tinkering with the front page and library layouts. Next thing you know, I had just what I envisioned:

Conclusion

At the end of this rollercoaster, I have exactly what I set out to build: a tiny, portable powerhouse that fits in a backpack and turns any TV into a high-end gaming hub. Is it as “plug-and-play” as a Nintendo Switch? Absolutely not. I had to fight drivers, navigate BIOS menus, and accept temporary defeat at the hands of an old office computer to get here. But there’s a specific kind of satisfaction in knowing that my “console” isn’t a locked-down box controlled by a mega-corporation. It’s a custom-tailored, open-source beast that handles my Steam library, and looks damn good doing it. If you’ve got a spare $200 and a bit of patience, stop waiting for Valve to release a Steam Machine: Build your own.

Just maybe skip the office-grade hardware and go straight for a mini pc of your choosing. Your sanity will thank you.