ModRetro, the vintage gaming startup founded by Palmer Luckey, is in talks to raise funding at a valuation of $1 billion, according to the Financial Times.
The company launched its first product, a Game Boy-style handheld device, called Chromatic in 2024. Sean Hollister of The Verge said it “might be the best version of the Game Boy ever made,” but found it difficult to separate it from Luckey’s reputation as the founder of defense technology startup Anduril Industries.
“If Lockheed Martin made a Game Boy, would you buy it?” Hollister asked.
Luckey said last year that he had been trying to make Game Boy-inspired devices “on and off as a hobbyist for nearly 17 years,” and described Chromatic as the result of “hundreds of irrational decisions” that became “an uncompromising, true celebration of everything that made the console special.”
The FT reports that ModRetro is working on other devices, including one designed to clone the Nintendo 64.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration appears to have embraced Luckey’s vision for autonomous weapons, and Anduril is reportedly in talks to raise a new funding round worth $60 billion.
