ATARI have been hard at work over the last couple of years trying to market their products and games to a wider audience. They’ve teased products in the past and have even partnered with MyArcade in the past, but this time it’s on a bigger device, that’s being named the GameStation Go.
According to ATARI’s and MyArcade’s social channels it will be officially revealed at CES which starts on the 7th January 2025. This device was teased last year but was for some reason not officially released or revealed until now, as it likely needed more refinements and to allow the product team to focus efforts on the Atari 2600+.
The video that was uploaded to socials shows off most of the product. It’s certainly a unique design and had to be in some way if it was able to efficiently play ATARI’s library of retro games. For example, it features a numpad, a trackball, a action buttons, a DPAD, four shoulder buttons and more.
Behind and around most of the buttons are LED lights, not only to make it look more modern but also to help the user understand which controls to use when loading a game. It is rumoured that these LED’s could light the controls needed.
It features a 7″ display with unique borders around the screen that hosts the start, select and menu buttons on the forehead of the screen, which certainly looks… unique.
On the back you’ll also find USB-C ports that allows you to connect up to two additional controllers to the device, should you want to use the included HDMI out port to turn it into a home console. I also noticed it has a micro-SD card slot too, making me wonder if it can emulate non-ATARI ROMs, but that has not been officially announced and likely not possible due to the fact its a licensed product and will likely come with many pre-loaded ATARI games already.
What can we expect? As we know the retro handheld market is incredibly aggressive, with handheld manufactuers launching new products every few weeks. This is certainly going to be a device that will struggle to sell lots of units, but it’s targetting the loyal ATARI fans, and that’s it.
It’s big, it’s likely not as well built as some manufacturers such as AYANEO, GoRetroid and ModRetro, but offers unique controls and pre-loaded, fully-licensed ATARI games from the get go, without having to faff around with loading up your own ROM files.
It will make a great gifts, and will certainly be loved by many handheld enthusiasts, but there’s no denying this is an incredibly niche device that has to be put in a backpack due to its sheer size. I welcome it, and hope I can get one to review, but depending on its price (which hasn’t been announced yet), I think i’ll wait this one out.
More information will be revealed at CES on January 7th 2025.
