5 Of The Best Official Gaming Consoles You Can Buy With Built-In Old-School Games

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One of the biggest areas of popular consumer electronics involves nostalgia-tapping items that remind the public of the video games they grew up playing. There's no shortage of miniature consoles and handheld systems that play all kinds of great old-school games, but it's no easy task to determine which of these is the best. There are homebrew options, officially licensed products, and a plethora of knock-offs that play only pirated games, which aren't exactly legal or recommended.

Looking at the licensed products, there are more than enough to keep old-school retro gamers happy, as they cover a variety of popular systems. Nintendo released the Nintendo Classic Mini, delighting fans worldwide with a miniaturized Nintendo Entertainment System preloaded with 30 classic NES games. Since then, the Super NES Classic Edition (pictured) arrived, and there have been many more similar products, not to mention mini arcade machines that recreate the real thing on a smaller scale.

You can get lost looking for the best official gaming consoles that come loaded with built-in old-school games, but you don't have to. Instead, you can check out the five highlighted below, as they're all quality products that feature a wide range of titles that hearken back to the classic video game era of the 1970s, '80s, and '90s. They're arranged by the release order of the consoles they represent, so check them out below and relive the glory days by playing classic games you'd otherwise have to emulate or run on original, aging hardware.

The Atari 2600 was released in 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System (VCS), but it was renamed in 1982 when the company released the Atari 5200. The system was one of the first home gaming consoles, having arrived in the second generation alongside the Fairchild Channel F, Mattel Intellivision, and ColecoVision. The Atari 2600 won the generation, driving most sales in the expanding home video game industry until the 1983 video game crash, brought on largely by an oversaturated market filled with subpar titles.

Despite this, the Atari 2600 featured some of the era's greatest games, including "River Raid," "Pitfall," "Combat," and many more. These titles introduced an entire generation of players to multiple genres, and the brand had staying power. Atari has released a variety of retro-inspired systems in recent years, including recreations of the Atari 2600, the Atari 7800, and handheld systems like the Atari Gamestation Go, so the company knows that its products are being enjoyed by Generation X.

The Atari 2600+ is a modern recreation of the OG Atari console, and it's not your typical remake. Instead of playing games hard-coded onto the system, it can play Atari 2600 and Atari 7800 cartridges you still have in your collection. If you don't have any lying around, it comes with a 10-in-1 game cartridge featuring some of the system's best games, including "Missile Command," "Adventure," and "Yar's Revenge," giving it plenty of variety and functionality.

While it's not a brand that's well known today, Amiga was once a major contender in the home PC market. In fact, the Commodore Amiga is one of the best-selling computers of all time, so it made an impact when the brand first arrived in 1985. The company's best-selling model was the Amiga 500, which arrived in 1987 and featured some impressive capabilities. It was the first home computer that could multitask; it featured high-end color graphics, and it wasn't incredibly expensive. That said, it retailed for $699 ($2,060 in 2026), which was significantly cheaper than the competition.

While the Amiga was marketed as a computer, and it was one, it was also a fantastic platform for video games. It could play arcade LaserDisc games like "Dragon's Lair" and "Space Ace" without any problems, and developers produced plenty of excellent titles for the system. Some of the best include "Another World," "Syndicate," and "Populous," among others. The Amiga 500 had plenty of fans, and the computer sold well, but the brand began to fade into the 1990s following Commodore's 1994 bankruptcy.

Fast-forward to 2022, and Retro Games revived Amiga's best-selling computer in the Amiga A500 Mini, a scaled-down Amiga loaded with 25 classic games. Included titles include "Worms: The Director's Cut," "Alien Breed 3D," and "California Games." It also features save/load capability and includes a multi-function joystick and gamepad, both updated versions with modern components built for hours of extended gameplay.

Sega's first home gaming console arrived in North America as the Sega Master System in 1986, which was followed by the Sega Genesis (called the Mega Drive outside North America) in 1989, so the 8-bit console was quickly succeeded by its 16-bit successor. The Sega Genesis popularized "Sonic the Hedgehog" and made Sega a household name. It also set up one of the biggest fights of the video game constol wars, pitting Sega against Nintendo, which held the market since the NES' release in 1985.

Once more, Sega nipped at Nintendo's heels when the company released the Sega Genesis Mini in 2019, coming three years after the Nintendo Classic Mini's arrival. The system came with 42 original Sega Genesis games, including classics like "Altered Beast," "Castlevania: Bloodlines," "Comix Zone," "Earthworm Jim," and of course, "Sonic the Hedgehog" and its sequel. The system sold well, so Sega launched the Sega Genesis Mini 2 in 2022 with several improvements.

The new classic system is much like its predecessor, but it features several enhancements, including a six-button gamepad. It also comes loaded with games. The Sega Genesis Mini 2 includes 60 titles, several of which are from the Sega CD system, which was released as an accessory of the original console. Some of the CD games included are "Ecco the Dolphin," "Final Fight," "Night Trap," and "Sonic CD," while the system also features the same games released on the Sega Genesis Mini, with a few more added to the mix.

When it was released in 1990, the SNK Neo Geo came in two forms: the MVS and AES. The MVS was the arcade system that allowed for up to four games to be installed on a multi-game cabinet, while the AES was the home console version that played the same games. The SNK Neo Geo AES was one of the best classic gaming consoles almost nobody played because it was prohibitively expensive. That left most gameplay to the arcades, where players found some of the best fighting games ever released in the '90s.

The system's proprietary game franchises included "Fatal Fury," "Art of Fighting," "King of Fighters," and more. Additionally, Neo Geo had non-fighting franchises like "Metal Slug" and others. While the brand largely disappeared from the gaming scene for several years, SNK brought Neo Geo back in several mini console versions, but the best is the SNK NeoGeo Mini, which not only features many of the system's greatest games, but it comes in the form of a small arcade machine to really tap into gamers' nostalgia for '90s arcade gaming.

The NeoGeo Mini comes loaded with 40 games, and they're all classics that made the system great. They include several in the "King of Fighters" franchise, multiple "Metal Slug" titles, "King of Monsters 2," "Top Player's Golf," and plenty more. If you prefer not to play on the small screen, you can connect it to a larger display via an HDMI cable. The SNK NeoGeo Mini arrived in 2018 and remains one of the more popular mini gaming consoles loaded with excellent titles.

Sony's inaugural video game console arrived in North America in 1995 as a 32-bit CD-ROM machine known as the PlayStation. It absolutely dominated the competition during the fifth console generation, outselling the 3DO, Atari Jaguar, Sega Saturn, and Nintendo 64. The PlayStation's popularity set Sony up for decades of video game success. The PlayStation console featured an impressive controller and a large library of excellent games. Additionally, the system served as the launch platform for several notable franchises, including "Tomb Raider," "Crash Bandicoot," and "Twisted Metal."

After other video game console makers began tapping into the public's nostalgia for their devices, Sony jumped into the fray with its own based on the original PlayStation. The PlayStation Classic hit the market in 2018, and like the competition, it came in a smaller-scale reproduction of the original machine. The PlayStation Classic came with 20 pre-loaded games, including several of the PlayStation's greatest hits. These include "Final Fantasy VII," "Grand Theft Auto," "Metal Gear Solid," "Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee," and "Resident Evil: Director's Cut."

When it arrived, the PlayStation Classic received mixed reviews for what some considered a lackluster game library. Additionally, it came with the original PlayStation controller, though some felt a more modern version would have been better. Others modded the hardware to better reflect what they felt would be a good representation of the original PlayStation, with a larger game library and better controller support. Regardless, the PlayStation Classic sold well and remains one of the more popular miniaturized versions of '90s consoles available today.