Do we need an Atari gaming handheld in 2025? Definitely not. Do I still really want the Atari Gamestation Go? Absolutely. The retro portable strikes a great balance between ostentatious and sleek, retro and modern. But while the latest Atari machine is full of games from the ’80s, it packs a contemporary price tag of $180.
Produced by the folks at My Arcade, the Atari Gamestation Go was first revealed at CES 2025 near the start of the year. It packs a 7-inch high resolution full-color display, a rechargeable battery for 4-5 hours of playtime, and over 200 classics from Atari’s past. Pre-orders went live today at Best Buy and GameStop, with the device shipping sometime in October. Here’s a sample of the game list:
- Asteroids: Recharged
- Missile Command: Recharged
- Centipede: Recharged
- Breakout: Recharged
- Berzerk: Recharged
- Balls of Steel Pinball
- PAC-MAN
- Breakout
- Tempest
- Warlords
The coolest features by far are the integrated paddle, trak-ball and number pad. Not only do they look really cool with the yellow, tan, orange, and black colorway, they’re also functional for deep-cuts like Codebreakers and Missile Command. Assuming the emulation is decent, the buttons feel good, and the device isn’t uncomfortable to hold, it could end up being one of the best ways to play one of gaming’s often overlooked but historically significant back catalogs.
The fact that the Atari Gamestation Go only plays old Atari games is probably for the best. What better way to put down the smartphone and purge the algorithmic slop-scrolling than by locking into twitchy pattern recognition with OG shoot ’em up Space Invaders? But $180 is nothing to sneeze at. The Switch Lite might officially be $230 but it launched at $200 and can now often be found secondhand for just $100.
Retro consoles are cashing in on nostalgia more than anything, but the Atari Gamestation Go is still coming in pretty steep. The NES and SNES Classic came in at $60 and $80 respectively when Nintendo launched them years back. The PlayStation Classic was still only $100. North of that and thoughts of childhood Pitfall sessions brush up again the harsh realities of the current family budget. At least the Atari Gamestation Go doubles as a visual showpiece and a portable time machine.