It started with turntables and instant cameras, but the retro craze eventually hit the video games industry. Then again, many gamers had a soft spot for old-school 8-bit and 16-bit games, but things really heated up when the likes of Nintendo jumped on the nostalgia train with an official mini NES/Famicom recreation. Since then, many brands have tried to join the party and launched various retro consoles, many of which were portable only in size.
A few retro game lovers made a name for themselves in designing actually playable portable retro consoles. My Arcade is one of the most prolific among these, having teamed up with the big names like Atari, Bandai Namco, CAPCOM, and more. At CES 2025, it showed off one of its latest masterpieces that fused handheld gaming consoles and Atari’s iconic design language in a rather unique and interesting design.
Designer:
Handheld gaming is becoming big again, now that major PC makers and processor manufacturers have joined the fray. At first glance, you could almost presume that the Atari Gamestation Go is yet another money-grab attempt, but closer inspection reveals a very different spin on that design. Unlike the Gamestation Retro Go that it also announced at CES this week, the Atari Gamestation Go has the clear markings of an Atari-centric gaming machine that only Atari fans will be able to discern. Most gamers, however, will definitely notice this isn’t your average handheld console.
The controls are quite different from the standard, at least aside from the customary D-pad, four face buttons, shoulders, and triggers. There’s a knob at the top on the left side, what Atari fans call the “paddle,” a clear reference to Pong and Arkanoid, two games that are best played by turning a dial to move, well, the paddle. At the bottom left is something you’ll probably never see on any other handheld: a trackball. Or as Atari branded it, “Trak-Ball.” Titles like Centipede are said to feel more natural with such a control, versus your typical joystick or, worse, directional buttons.
On the opposite side lies the most unconventional control for a gaming handheld, though. There’s a full numeric keypad, but it’s not for crunching numbers. A few Atari games actually used such an unusual interaction method, cementing the Gamestation Go’s image as something designed for true-blooded Atari fans. With that many controls to choose from, which ones should you use for which games? That’s where My Arcade’s “SmartGlow” technology comes in, visibly highlighting the applicable controls for the game that’s currently running.
It may be running old-school games, but the Atari Gamestation Go definitely has plenty of modern amenities such as HDMI for video out and USB-C ports for external controllers. It’s 7-inch screen is intentionally large to support Atari: Recharged games, adding to the massive library for more than 200 officially licensed games built-in. This is clearly an Atari lover’s dream come true, and it could be theirs for only $149.99 by the time it rolls out into the market by the third quarter of this year.
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