I played the Atari Gamestation Go and experienced its pure retro glory

By Luke Larsen Published January 8, 2025

I’ve seen a lot of gaming handhelds at CES 2025 this week, and they all do more or less the same thing. The Atari Gamestation Go, however, is a refreshing change of pace. As you can tell, it’s a retro handheld gaming device, with over 200 Atari games preloaded right at your fingertips, including three different versions of Pac-Man. In many ways, it’s a portable version of the Atari Gamestation Pro, a tiny home console version — but so much better.

Before I move any further, it’s important to know that although “Atari” is in the name, both the Gamestation Go and Pro are made by a company called My Arcade. It’s a company that knows a thing or two about nailing the specifics of what makes playing retro arcade games feel special, especially after seeing some of its other announcements at the show. The Atari Gamestation Pro has a 7-inch 16:9 display, of course, and it felt great to play on. The handheld was comfortable to hold, and quite light.

The controls are what make this feel special though. Anyone can just put some old retro games on a handheld, after all — the Gamestation Go really goes the extra mile to bring back these games in all their glory. It has a joystick, a D-pad, a trackball, four buttons, and a numberpad. That’s a lot of different options, and some only work in certain games.

For example, the numberpad is designed exclusively for Atari5200 games, while the trackball is for Millipede. So, pull up an Atari5200 game, and the numberpad will light up, while Millipede will light up the trackball. That’s especially important since not everyone will be familiar with every game in the historic library. But really, it’s these controls that really bring out the retro feel in an authentic way.

The Gamestation Go comes with a microSD card slot, as well as internal storage, though the capacity hasn’t been detailed yet. And if you want to play multiplayer, it has two USB-C ports to plug in wired controllers, whether that’s an Xbox or Playstation controller or one of My Arcade’s more appropriate retro controllers. Lastly, there’s HDMI out and a built-in kickstand, for when you want to hook it up to a larger screen.

My Arcade didn’t have any information on battery life, unfortunately, and some of the software was still in production — so not all the games could load. But I’d be lying if I didn’t have some serious fun playing a quick game of Asteroid in my short time with it.

The Atari Gamestation Go will be out sometime in the third quarter of 2025 and will cost $150.

My Arcade has also announced the Gamestation Retro. I saw this one as well, though it didn’t turn on, as it was only a prototype.