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'If Lockheed Martin Made a Game Boy, Would You Buy One?' (techcrunch.com) 119

Posted by BeauHD from the conflicted-nostalgia dept.
"If Lockheed Martin made a Game Boy, would you buy one?" That was the [rhetorical] question The Verge's Sean Hollister asked when he reviewed ModRetro's Game Boy-style handheld device back in 2024. He said it "might be the best version of the Game Boy ever made," though the connection to Palmer Luckey and his defense tech startup Anduril left him conflicted. "I don't remember my childhood nostalgia coming with a side of possible guilt and fear about putting money into the pocket of a weapons contractor," he wrote. "Feels weird!"

Those conflicted feelings have lingered ever since. TechCrunch recently cited Hollister's review while reporting that ModRetro is now seeking funding at a $1 billion valuation. The company is said to have additional retro-inspired hardware in development, including one designed to replicate the Nintendo 64. As for Anduril? It's reportedly in talks to raise a new funding round that would value the company at around $60 billion.
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'If Lockheed Martin Made a Game Boy, Would You Buy One?' More

'If Lockheed Martin Made a Game Boy, Would You Buy One?'

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  • What's the conflict? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Valgrus Thunderaxe ( 8769977 ) on Monday March 09, 2026 @01:13PM (#66031460)
    I don't see any issue here with Palmer Lucky making a gaming device.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by UnknowingFool ( 672806 )
      Indeed. The premise is Palmer Lucky is making retro gaming devices through his company ModRetro. Lucky also is the founder of defense startup, Anduril Industries which is focused on advanced autonomous systems. So the question was "If Lockheed Martin made a Game Boy, would you buy one?". First of all what does Lockheed Martin have to do with anything? They are not connected to Lucky or either company. Second, the founder of the two companies is the same. That does not mean both companies are the same. The q
      • The question seems to be clickbait.

        Yes. The inference is that this gaming device is somehow funding arms sales. That's a big, fat Citation Needed.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by sabbede ( 2678435 )
          And so long as the answer to the question "for who" was, "The US and her Allies", I'd be fine with it.

          • At least somebody bothered to downvote the out-loud nationalism in this thread. I'm rather irritated it only happened once.

            • Hey brah, Reddit's over there ->

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward

            Weird you think the US has allies. That ship sailed at least 13 months ago, probably a bit longer. Obviously the codependent Israel thing is still around, but anyone else?

          • Re:What's the conflict? (Score:4, Insightful)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Tuesday March 10, 2026 @05:37AM (#66032926) Homepage Journal

            Does the US have any allies? Most of Europe seems to have decided that the US is unreliable, and doesn't want to get involved in US wars. Israel isn't really an ally, they just do what they want and drag the US into their wars. Japan, maybe?

            • Did most of Europe decide that, or is it just what European liberals are saying? NATO has not dissolved, and that is a formal alliance.

              European liberals react to Trump in the same unhealthy and unhelpful ways that American liberals do. Which includes a lot of empty talk about not wanting to be here.

        • Yeah the whole thing is stupid. I suspect this article is sponsored but the author hates taking lucky’s gross weirdo money.
          There’s no reason to bring any attention to, or remark on the amazing build quality of a random retro gameboy: There are tons of things like this already,

          Maybe someone who has a virge subscription can tell us why this matters at all?

      • Re:What's the conflict? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by leonbev ( 111395 ) on Monday March 09, 2026 @01:31PM (#66031516) Journal

        The question could be rephrased as "What Clickbait headline can we use give this Verge article more attention?"

      • Why would anyone have any feelings at all one way or another with someone connected to a defense contractor?

        In the US we need defense....it is a great employer for US citizens...etc.

        I don't see why anyone would have "guilt" or whatever at all....

      • Indeed. The premise is Palmer Lucky is making retro gaming devices through his company ModRetro. Lucky also is the founder of defense startup, Anduril Industries which is focused on advanced autonomous systems. So the question was "If Lockheed Martin made a Game Boy, would you buy one?". First of all what does Lockheed Martin have to do with anything? They are not connected to Lucky or either company. Second, the founder of the two companies is the same. That does not mean both companies are the same. The question seems to be clickbait.

        Or perhaps the question is to test just how naive the average person really is.

        Palmer Lucky is free to earn billions selling gaming hardware in ModRetro. Palmer Lucky is also free to shut down ModRetro after that and take those billions and utilize them to fund weapons of war in Anduril.

        The headline tracks because you're being painfully ignorant as to what could happen here. These are two privately held companies. Meaning they can do whatever the fuck they want with revenue.

      • With companies that make weapons because those weapons are very very often used to kill civilians.

        Take that school America blew up in Iran or the tens of thousands of people killed in Gaza.

        Honestly though there is no ethical consumption under capitalism as they say. There's no point to getting hung up on individual purchases. If a boycott starts to take off that can sometimes be effective but very rarely because like we found out with Bud light drinkers switching the keystone all you did was slightl
    • Or with him making weapons. His company is working on some of the weapons that we'll (sadly) need in the near future. Yes, including some autonomous capabilities.

  • What--?

    $1 billion for what? I'm going to go out on a limb and claim that nobody has ever made significant money selling gaming hardware. Are you going to develop and/or license quality games for it, or is it just going to contain the usual shovelware ROMs?

    So many decent-quality Chinese handheld consoles already exist, I have a hard time imagining what ModRetro could do better hardware-wise that would justify a valuation like that. It would have to be in the form of exclusive licensing with Nintendo or Sega

    • The only thing that can compete with the Switch is the steamdeck. Retro games are abundant on Switch, as are a billion puzzle games involving busty anime characters. Way too many of those.
      They want a billion dollars and don't have AI in their name?

  • Given that cheap, one way drones are the future of combat and that the US is woefully behind on this tech, I'll do whatever I can to help Anduril or a similar company succeed.

  • But they'd need to add a cartridge with Wargames with the console.

  • I wouldn't be able to afford it! I once had an apartment mate who worked for Lockheed Martin. He didn't have a security clearance when he started, so he couldn't do any actual work on the missile systems he was hired to work on for a month until they finished the clearance. Despite that, Lockheed Martin insisted he come to work and sit at his desk 8 hours every day... doing absolutely nothing.

    • This is actually very common for people who require heightened clearance. They still want you because of your skillset but accept the fact that checks take time. Besides, what is one month if you're on a long-term, high-importance project? You can use it to do all the mandatory training and wrapping yourself in red tape. When I think about it, it usually takes one month to do all the copious compliance training anyway.

    • Did they pay him for that month?

      What is wrong about coming into the office to at least get to know people, and try to get your ducks in a row for when the clearance is finally there? What about giving the office a chance to get to know you so they can see if he is a good fit?

      Not trying to excuse heavy and stupid clearance processes, but making the guy come in seems completely normal if not necessary and a good idea to me. And Im sure all their heavy bureaucracy is not entirely without reason, they are not p

      • Christ, you guys are working so hard on the overton window here that you're trying to deviate "we shouldn't buy video games from people making autonomous weapons" into "requiring people to come into the office and do nothing just to be a good employee is good, actually." If you're not bots, you need therapy.

    • As someone else mentioned, this is (sadly) a common use of our tax dollars. I know several people (former co-workers) who work (or worked) at a defense contractor, and they all had similar stories. Some had to wait just a few weeks but others would drag on for months, even over a year in one case, waiting for their clearances. Regardless, they had to show up and put in the time every day. Sometimes they'd do training, sometimes they'd be assigned a task that didn't require clearance, and other times the

      • The problem with Lockheed Martin is not efficiency. The world would be significantly improved if every Lockheed Martin employee were permanently paid to do nothing.

  • Childhood nostalgia guilt? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Monday March 09, 2026 @01:48PM (#66031558)

    You were a kid, you wouldn't have given an iota of a shit if Nintendo's CEO ate babies.

    • So buy a different nostalgia handheld, there are fifty million of them

  • ..just an excuse for the author to describe the size of his vagina? "There's a new Game Boy, plus I'm a giant pussy"?

    Oh, boo-frikkin-hoo, the guy is also a defense contractor. Maybe next time, don't insert your childishly naive politics into a story about a damn gameboy. It's hard to keep reading after an author tells you they aren't worthy of respect.

    • It's a discussion of ethics. Let me rephrase it so you can understand.

      You want a cup of coffee and see a coffee shop. Upon entering you see a rainbow flag and the phrase "everyone is welcome". Do you spend your money here or leave?

      • "yes"

        or possibly
        "No".

        YMMV

      • Do they make good coffee?

        The people who engage in this kind of behavior where they can't possibly do business with someone who doesn't one hundred percent conform to their own beliefs never mentally developed beyond high school. Buying a cup of coffee from someone doesn't mean that you agree with anything beyond that you think they have coffee worth the asking price.

        The same applies to art. Too many people will shun something because of the creator. The reality is that they probably love some book, mo

        • "Don't materially contribute directly to warmongering" is an exceptionally good purity test that people should apply if they want to continue to live.

      • How's the coffee? I care about what's relevant, and to a coffee shop that is the quality and price of the coffee. Oh, and it will also have to smell like coffee. If I walk in and it stinks of patchouli, I might leave. I hate that smell. I love the smell of coffee. I remember a coffee shop I used to frequent. Several times a week for a variety of reasons, mostly revolving around me being friends with the staff and owner. The owner was very far to the left, and the shop was where the local Democrat Pa

      • Question 0: is the coffee good?

        Question B: is the cost explicitly jacked up for the purpose of smuggling illegals in and/or paying useful idiots to obstruct federal law enforcement?

        If not, then I'll pay for good coffee and I don't care about the guy's politics.

        If so, then the place is what we call a "front operation" for illegal activity and patronizing them would make as much sense as knowingly patronizing any mafia business.

        Is the defense industry a mafia business? It is not. It engages in perfectly legal

    • Naive politics are the ones that label the ability to murder at will on the other side of the planet "defense." Turn 20 and read some books.

      • I love it when people tell me to read the stupid arguments that convinced them of whatever foolishness it may be.

        • You think that the government needs to be manly and that the way it needs to do that is maintaining the ability to kill thousands of miles from our borders. You should seriously consider turning 20 and reading some books.

          • Yes, as a matter of fact I do. It turns out that we have key interests that are thousands of miles from our borders. Where there are many people who actively wish to harm us, no matter how nice you might try to be to them. And, I have read a number of books on the matter - political science, theory, and international relations are all things I happened to have studied. Formally.

            • We have absolutely no legitimate interests on the other side of the planet. The only reason something over there could ever be a problem for us is because we were determined to fuck with it in the first place. Stop fucking lying.

              • Oh, and here I thought there might be countries over there with ICBMs. Or that might be places with resources we need and don't have. Or that might be actively working to harm us. Or might be friends in peril. Or business partners. Or business competitors.

                Presumably, you want a cell phone. Where are they made? Where do the raw materials come from? I assume you want medicine. Do you know where it comes from?

      • When we don't pay attention to wars on the other side of the world, those wars end up finding us.

        Historically, many countries have tried the "build a big wall and ignore the rest of the world" strategy. The Siege of Tyre, the Siege of Constantinople, pre-WW2 France, etc. That doesn't mean attacking Iran was the right idea at this time.

        Peace is the idea we should work towards. You have to accept the world as it is, without giving up your ideals. That means trying to solve the problems (in this case, the

  • Sure, why not? (Score:3)

    by pngwen ( 72492 ) on Monday March 09, 2026 @01:50PM (#66031568) Journal

    I can certainly understand not wanting to put money in the pocket of a weapons manufacturer, but like 20-30% of our income goes to them anyway. The only way to avoid enriching them would be to earn no income, and therefore pay no taxes. So since we all bear the ethical and moral burden of having blood stained hands already, we might as well enjoy that sweet retro handheld.

    • Or you can get one of the dozens of sweet retro handhelds that do not directly pay one of the guys doing the most geopolitical harm.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pngwen ( 72492 )

        True, but at least this way the warmongers had to take time out of their day to make me a gameboy.

  • If Lockheed Martin made a GameBoy could you AFFORD it? Milled from a single piece of titanium, hardened again EMP, sealed against sand, operating temperature range of of -20c to 80c. With 3 o4 parts secretly and illegally source from China ( because no US based vendor ). $30,000.

  • If Porsche or VW ever made tanks, would you buy th (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HnT ( 306652 ) on Monday March 09, 2026 @02:41PM (#66031742)

    If Porsche and VW ever made tanks, would you buy their cars? What about Bayer, certain chemicals, and buying their Aspirin?

    What radical-postmodernist guilt-by-association BS is this??!!! Are weapons manufacturer now by definition super duper evil and society somehow has to shun them altho by law they are legal..? WTF is this vigilante pseudo-justice activism BS???

    The-new-left and radical-postmodernism were a mistake.

    • Almost all of the large German car makers were producing something for the German military in WW2 .... so yea, no one cares. You like that BMW logo of an airplane propellor, guess what they made?
    • Um Porsche has been heavily involved in German tank design and manufacture
      VW was started by the Nazi party as an affordable car for the workers ( designed by Dr. Porsche )
    • You seemed to have missed IBM.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nugoo ( 1794744 )
      If Porsche or VW were currently making tanks for Nazi Germany, I would certainly boycott them.

    • Are weapons manufacturer now by definition super duper evil and society somehow has to shun them altho by law they are legal..?

      What do you imagine legality has to do with morality?

  • But they did make the 3D rendering chips for some of Segaâ(TM)s arcade cabinets [slashdot.org].

  • If Lockheed Martin... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ahoffer0 ( 1372847 ) on Monday March 09, 2026 @03:39PM (#66031940)

    ...made a game boy, it would cost 1.2 million dollars and arrive 7 years late.

    • ...made a game boy, it would cost 1.2 million dollars and arrive 7 years late.

      And come with one game. Other games are in Block 2.

  • ...made a game boy, it would cost 1.2 million and arrive 7 years late.

  • Choose (Score:3)

    by J-1000 ( 869558 ) on Monday March 09, 2026 @04:24PM (#66032054)

    We either need defense contractors or we don't. We don't need them? Then we should be protesting in the streets to get rid of them. But I don't see many people doing that (and when we do protest, it's against how our government chooses to utilize their services, not necessarily the entities themselves), so the consensus therefore seems to be that they serve *some* good purpose, at least in part.

    So then, if they are good enough to keep around, why shouldn't we buy a Game Boy from them? To say we shouldn't strikes me as hypocritical.

  • How much federal income tax do you pay per year? Take that number and multiply by 13% and divide by 12. That's how much you are paying into the military-industrial complex per month. For most employed Americans that's at least $200 per month, $2400.00 per year.

  • Lockheed Martin already did (Score:3)

    by boondaburrah ( 1748490 ) on Monday March 09, 2026 @09:37PM (#66032618)

    Not remembering Lockheed Martin as a part of gaming history doesn't mean they weren't responsible for the launch of 3D gaming as we all know it. They worked with SEGA to create Virtua Fighter arcade machines, after all, which is what kicked off the Playstation and 3D gaming as a whole. (Lockheed Martin used 3D gaming as a way to work on their flight simulator pilot training technology.)

    Would it have come eventually anyway? Yeah probably, but in our current timeline, Lockheed Martin was already involved.

  • No (Score:2)

    by whitroth ( 9367 )

    Lockmart making Gameboy? After all the disasters of their space programs, and then there's the disaster of the F-35, why would I trust it to a) work, and b) not be utterly buggy?

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