Modern day Atari is certainly an interesting beast. To sum up a story that we perhaps take too long to tell, the first two companies named Atari, owned by Nolan Bushnell and Jack Tramiel, respectively, are long gone and dead. The company we know today, Atari SA, was originally Infogrames, and they are the company that owns the Atari branding and many of their classic games today. Under Atari SA is Atari Inc, the US subsidiary, and Atari Interactive, who manages the Atari brand.
In recent years, Atari has made a surprise return to hardware, though they did not quite get back into the trenches to compete with Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. Instead, they have come back with the Atari 2600+ and Atari 7800+, modern day versions of their classic consoles that can run original cartridges on modern screens. They also launched the Atari VCS, a Linux based game console with its own built in online store. All these consoles play classic games for the most part, and Atari has been content with servicing that appetite for their old games from their dedicated fans.
Enter MyArcade. Most recently, Atari Interactive has been licensing their brand and games to MyArcade to make a new batch of Atari consoles. MyArcade made several miniature arcade cabinets, a handheld console called the Pocket Player, and a new home console called the GameStation Pro. And in 2025, Atari has announced their latest collaboration, the GameStation Go.
In their reveal trailer, Atari and MyArcade did not reveal any games for the console yet, but there’s already a few things for Atari fans to be excited about. This is another handheld console, but unlike the Pocket Player, it has a proper dome shaped d-pad, with cross wedges jutting out for accurate input. On top of that, there is a dial controller on top of the d-pad, and a small trackball at the bottom.
But we expect modern gamers will be truly confounded by what’s on the right hand side. Below the expected four face buttons is a complete number pad. And Atari already got a lot of confused replies, but they really shouldn’t be. Many of Atari’s games were played on the Atari 2800 with a dial controller, and some arcade games were played with a trackball. More importantly, Atari’s little known second console, the Atari 5200, featured full number pad as well.
So if it isn’t clear to you yet, this is a dedicated console for Atari’s own games. We already expect some gamers to be complaining about what games the device will have, but obviously this handheld won’t be for them. What should really excite Atari fans is that this will be the first time in quite a while that Atari will be reselling Atari 5200 games. Much like the GameStation Pro, we expect the GameStation Go will have all its games bundled in. It won’t be running on a Samsung 5nm CPU for sure, but it’s going to be a really great value.
Really, Atari fans have been waiting for some time for modern day Atari to get it right when it comes to bringing back their classic games. And while Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration has been satisfying for people who play on modern consoles, there were players who were hungry to get the classic Atari experience on proper controller setups that wasn’t inadequately remapped onto modern controllers. The GameStation Go will have that numpad, dial, and trackball to get it right. We’re looking forward to seeing if this latest go around is what classic Atari fans have been waiting for.
