Retro gaming portables have been all the rage for a good few years now, but it's fair to say that this year's CES just showcased one of the best-looking examples we've ever seen.
The Atari Gamestation Portable from MyArcade continues a fairly established collaboration between the retro console maker and Atari.
The handheld looks absolutely beautiful thanks to the way it's embraced a retro colour scheme, but it's not just impressive on the visual front - there's a lot packed in here.
In particular, the Gamestation Portable manages to include not just one but three of the more unique control options that Atari ever used on its gaming systems, all in one handheld.
You get a Trak-Ball (as it was called), a Paddle for side-scrolling games, and the Keypad for those that use numerical inputs, each helping to make sure that a selection of retro titles will feel as old-school as possible while you play them on the portable.
The Gamestation Portable also boasts a 7-inch display, and while we don't know what resolution it's pushing, it actually needn't be that wildly high given the nature of the games you'll be playing on it.
This is an officially licensed product, though, so it should come with some of the most famous Atari games included, although, again, at this early stage we haven't got any firm information about what titles might be included.
We do know that the handheld will have a kickstand on the back to let you play it without having to hold it the whole time, as well as USB-C ports for extra controllers - so it could be quite an adaptable bit of kit for multiplayer gaming.
One more big area that we're in the dark about is the Atari Gamestation Portable's release date and pricing - neither has been announced beyond a rough estimate of Q4 2024 for the handheld's release, which is a pretty big window.
Pricing is such a key variable for a retro handheld like this, so we'll be keeping an ear to the ground to learn more when the time comes, and to see if it can really offer a good value proposition. Still, even without that info, we can be confident that this is one of the best-looking handhelds anywhere on the horizon.
