Atari Gamestation Go finally hits shelves in October

Atari and My Arcade are back with new hardware, which isn’t a weird phrase to say in 2025 anymore. The company is following up its recent 2600+ and 7800+ hardware, as well as tributes to its computing hardware, with a new handheld.

Releasing in October, the Gamestation Go is a fairly expansive piece of hardware dedicated to playing classic Atari games. It comes packed with “over 200” games, including some from the recent Recharged series of rereleases. These Recharged games offer new visuals on top of classic games.

Shown off at CES 2025 in January, the Gamestation Go hasn’t really been seen until now. It’ll cost $179.99 and will ship this October. Pre-orders are open now.

While the games will certainly be an attraction, I’m more curious about the setup in the control department. The Atari Gamestation Go is outfitted with multiple controller options in this surprisingly large piece of hardware. This is, of course, to fit all the potential ways Atari games used to be played. So not only do you get the usual D-Pad, but there’s a full number pad too.

That will probably be for the included Atari 5200 games, which had a long controller with a full numerical pad on it. There’s also a trackball for arcade games, like Millipede and Missile Command. It even comes with a paddle for you to use on any supported games.

Atari is also including Jaleco and Piko International games with the device, but there are no Intellivision games just yet. However, as the Gamestation Go has Wi-Fi, this could easily be provided as an update. The Gamestation Go also has HDMI for outputting to a TV.

What even is Atari in 2025?

The company known as Atari isn’t exactly the same one from the 80s and 90s. That company is long gone, and this one that’s in its place used to be GT Interactive. You’ll remember GT from the 1990s PC scene in particular. They had a hand in publishing Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM 2, Unreal, and are known for forcing Monolith Software to release Blood 2 as quickly as possible. You can guess how much of a mess that was.

There are technically two companies called Atari right now, with Atari SA owning the previously known GT Interactive, Atari Inc.. In the last couple of years, the entity known as Atari has collectively begun to turn things around, as it moves on from some Web3 and crypto projects, its speaker hats, and hotel ventures.

Instead, it’s going all in on the gaming industry again, and it’s pretty cool so far. Like the Gamestation and the other hardware, it hinges a lot on nostalgia, but it’s all been solidly executed. They’ve even resurrected the Infogrames name for a publishing label and bought out long-time rival, Intellivision, in 2024.

Intellivision, at this point, is probably best known for the Amico debacle. Announced in 2018 and supposed to release in 2020, the Amico is a home console trying to latch onto any remnants of what the Wii did by bringing in a casual audience.

However, not only is the hardware nowhere to be seen, but one of the main names behind it, Tommy Tallarico, has been mired in controversy. This was whipped up especially during YouTuber Hbomberguy’s 2022 video trying to find the source of the “oof” sound from Roblox. It morphs from that to a deconstruction of Tallarico’s claims.

Ubisoft and Thunderful get snapped up

Atari also recently bought up five Ubisoft properties in a shock bit of news. It’s incredibly rare for a publisher to give up properties or even any major business. The thought is, if it’s a success and the company has washed its hands of it, that’s a loss. So when Atari bought Grow Home, Grow Up, I Am Alive, Cold Fear, and Child of Eden, it’s quite unprecedented.

The company also paid $5.2 million in July for an 82% stake in the Swedish publisher, Thunderful. It’s the publisher behind the SteamWorld games and various indie games.

From the pits to actually doing something in the industry, Atari is a bizarre story that I might have to dig into more. Business can be hard.

Every game on the Atari Gamestation Go

Oh, yeah, the Atari Gamestation Go will have the following games: