Best Retro Game Consoles of 2026

Thirty games is the biggest built-in library of the two Nintendo minis, which makes the NES Classic the tempting buy on paper — until you notice the box holds one controller. Out of the box this is a solo console, and a second pad is a separate purchase the Super NES Classic simply doesn't ask you to make.

We still keep it near the top for a specific buyer: someone whose memories are 8-bit rather than 16-bit. The line-up leans on arcade-style action and early Mario, the sessions are short and blunt in a way the later library isn't, and that's either the charm or the letdown depending on which decade you're chasing. If you know which one you are, you already know whether this is your console.

Setup is an HDMI cable and the included AC adapter, then a menu — the least fiddly experience in this guide. The controller cord is the familiar complaint and a real one: you'll want an extension cable or a longer HDMI run so the console can sit closer to the couch. Swap in a longer HDMI cable and the whole thing gets easier to live with.

Open the box and you get the console, a CX40+ joystick, a ten-games-in-one cartridge, an HDMI cable and a USB power cable — but no wall plug. That's the first practical detail: you need a spare USB adapter before you can play, and it's an odd thing to leave out of a box aimed at people who want to plug in and go.

What you're buying is the cartridge slot. It takes original Atari 2600 and 7800 cartridges, which makes this the only Atari cartridge machine here, and the included games — Adventure, Combat, Yars' Revenge, Haunted House among them — arrive on a cartridge too rather than baked into the console.

The feel is the surprise. The joystick's throw and the resistance on the switches are the details that sell the illusion, and there's something genuinely odd and pleasing about running a 1970s cartridge into a modern panel through HDMI. Cartridge condition matters: a cart that refuses to load is usually a dirty connector rather than a dead console, so clean the contacts before you blame the machine.

For the person who already owns the games, this is the easy recommendation — modern output, original media, no converters. For everyone else, ten games is a thin reason to spend this much, and the handheld Atari Gamestation Go gives you far more software for similar money.

Three cartridge slots in one box is the pitch: NES, SNES and Genesis carts all go in, and a single HDMI cable carries the result to your TV at 720p. For a collection that spans more than one format, that's a lot less furniture under the television and one fewer input in use.

The HDMI output is why this beats the cheaper Retro-Bit Duo for most people. It also keeps original controller ports, so your own pads work — the better route with any of these clones, where the supplied pads are usually the first thing to give out. Cartridge fit can be snug enough to make you careful, and the odd SNES title shows colour or sound that's slightly off.

We steer mixed shelves here without pretending it's a museum reproduction, because it isn't. It's the practical way to get three dead formats onto one modern TV, and the picture quality is the part that makes the difference. If you only own SNES carts and your TV has composite inputs, the Duo does the same job for less.

A 7-inch screen on a handheld is the headline, but the controls are what make this one interesting. There's a paddle, a d-pad, a trak-ball, a numeric keypad, bumpers and a set of ABXY buttons, so a 2600 paddle game and a 7800 platformer don't have to share one input layout.

Inside are more than 200 licensed games drawn from Atari's console generations, plus Jaleco and PIKO titles, with save options and Wi-Fi for updates. Prop it on a table and it's a small arcade; run the HDMI cable to your TV and it's a console with a controller you already know how to hold. It's the only device here that does both jobs well.

Not every input earns its place. The trak-ball is twitchy enough that we went back to the d-pad for Missile Command, and the shell feels plasticky in a way that doesn't match the rest of the package. The games themselves hold up better than the hardware around them.

For an Atari fan who wants breadth without hunting cartridges, this is the most complete single box in the guide. Buy it for the library and the screen; treat the trak-ball as a bonus that may or may not suit your hands.

If your television still has a yellow composite input, this is the least expensive way to get your own NES and SNES cartridges running again. Two slots, two wired controllers and the AV/S-video cable all come in the box — a complete kit with no adapters to hunt down, which is more than the Atari 2600+ manages.

The catch is the output. There's no HDMI here, only AV and S-video, so a modern panel needs a converter and the picture won't be as clean as the Trio's 720p. We treat the bundled pads as expendable; the console accepts original controllers through its own ports, which is the fix. A few SNES carts misbehave too, so test your favourites early rather than on a birthday.

That makes it a good buy for one specific household — the one that kept a CRT or an older receiver — and a frustrating one for everybody else. If you're in the second group, spend the difference on the Super Retro Trio HD Plus and skip the converter entirely.

For a kid's first handheld, this is where we start. At 6.4 ounces it's light enough for small hands, it charges over USB-C, and it carries 139 games on a 3-inch IPS screen that stays legible in the back of a car. Nothing about it feels precious, which is exactly the point.

The library is sorted into categories, and the manual includes a guide to the games — which sounds like filler until you watch a child try to work out what to do in a 32-bit platformer with no instructions. You won't seek any of these titles out for yourself. That's fine; this is a device for waiting rooms, flights and the hour between school and dinner.

The risk is the hardware. Charging-port and screen failures are what end this class of handheld early, and a unit that stops taking a charge is a drawer ornament. Buy where returns are easy, keep the included cable, and don't expect it to outlast a school year. Everything above that is a bonus at this price.

It comes out of the box smaller than the photos suggest: a palm-sized Atari 2600 with a matching miniature TV, a working joystick and a 1.5-inch screen showing ten classic games, Pac-Man and Breakout among them. The whole unit is about seven inches long, and most of that is the joystick cable's housing and the little TV shell.

We treat it as a desk piece that happens to play, and on those terms it's charming. The joystick does what it should, the games are the ones you remember, and it runs on AAA batteries so there's no cable snaking across a desk. Nobody is finishing Adventure on a screen that size, and nobody is meant to — it's a two-minute nostalgia hit between meetings.

As a gift it lands better than its specification suggests, because the reaction happens before anyone switches it on. As a way to actually play Atari, the 2600+ is the honest answer; this one is for the shelf beside it.