Once the hard part, which is to keep the metal plate floating stable, is taking care of, the rest is the same that needs to be done for other record players. Keeping a constant speed isn't that hard, because the plate is heavy, so it will resist rapid speed changes. You only have to correct for slow changes.
So this record player will not be better than other record players because of the missing shaft, and it won't be worse, either. Given same pickup head, same speed control technology, and same pickup circuit, it will perform the same.