Now that the microconsole trend has encompassed most of Nintendo’s, Sega’s, and Sony’s biggest devices, we’re starting to get into more niche areas. The Atari 400 Mini is not a re-release of the company’s most famous console, the 2600. And it’s not full of household names. But that’s part of what makes it so fun – this little gadget is a cute, fun way to explore a very specific and formative niche in video game history.
Like its contemporaries, the 400 Mini was a scaled-down version of the original. That means a small box made of 1970s beige plastic with a keyboard and card slots that’s purely decorative. I appreciate how retro this thing looks; even the included HDMI and power cords are beige. It has five USB ports (four on the front and one on the back), an HDMI port, and a USB-C port for power. There’s a functional power button on the back, as well as a little red light to let you know it’s on. You also get a classic Atari joystick that comes with a USB plug and sneaks in a few extra buttons, including shoulder buttons and a clickable circle around the actual joystick.
This is a plug and play device so setup is very simple. It doesn’t connect to the internet, and the visual setup is pretty standard. There are two options: 4:3 mode displays the game in its native aspect ratio, while “Pixel Perfect” mode renders pixels as squares. You also have the option of adding virtual scan lines to simulate the experience of playing games on a CRT monitor. Other than that, there’s not much. You can scroll through the game alphabetically, and it has a console-level save slot so you can pause and save your progress at any time while playing. Everything works well, although it took me a while to get the hang of using the big joystick to navigate the menus.
The more important part is the game itself. The 400 Mini comes with 25 built-in games spanning the Atari 8-bit era.This includes expected headers such as asteroid and centipedeas well as slightly more obscure versions like the nautical-themed shooter wavy navy and Hover Boever, Jeff Minter’s game involves mowing the grass with a stolen lawnmower. The emulation is very solid and I was surprised at how well some of these games performed.I haven’t played crystal castle before – a platformer in which a bear tries to escape a series of magical mazes – but I ended up spending hours playing it with my eight-year-old daughter, passing the joystick back and forth.Likewise, space simulation Star Raiders II After all these years I’m still incredibly excited, I’m so happy to have discovered ear balla fantasy maze in which you play as a bouncing bubble.
This is a well curated list and I found basically everything – except the extremely simple basketball – Still playable by modern standards. The series covers the capabilities of this hardware very well. Unlike most similar mini consoles, the 400 Mini has room for expansion. Various USB ports let you connect a variety of joysticks and keyboards, and you can plug in a flash drive to sideload games. This opens up a lot of possibilities, especially considering how strong the market for Atari homebrew software is.
Equipment expandability is also important because the 400 Mini faces surprising competition. It’s really not that hard to find a way to play Atari games these days.The company launched a replica of the 2600 last year that could play older cartridges, and it performed brilliantly Atari 50 Not only does the series have an extensive list of games, it also adds historical context through its interactive documentary format. With that in mind, a $119 mini console might be a tough sell.But the bookshelf design combined with its flexibility may push it to its limits – as long as you crave some Star Strategy.