Amazing Technicolor Magnesium Game Boys

Palmer Luckey is now selling pixel-perfect ultrabright magnesium Game Boys for $199

It even comes with Tetris.

The Verge

As someone long obsessed with retro-gaming in all shapes and forms, this is right up my alley. But I mean, who could not want this? Sean Hollister:

Shipping this holiday, the ModRetro Chromatic sounds incredible: magnesium alloy case, sapphire crystal cover glass, PBT buttons, a pixel-perfect IPS screen at the same size and resolution as the original Game Boy and Game Boy Color, color-matched to the Game Boy Color screen — with “well over a thousand” nits of brightness so you can play out in the sunlight.

Not only does it have an FPGA inside (like the lauded Analogue Pocket) to play genuine Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges as if you’re playing them on the Nintendo original but Luckey also says it will come with a genuine copy of Tetris like the original Game Boy often famously did. It’s a new, fully licensed Tetris game internally developed by Luckey’s team, which features “reimagined versions of the iconic Tetris theme song” and genuine Link Cable multiplayer.

What timing too, given the rise in interest in this form of gaming thanks to the recent iOS policy change which has birthed a plethora of old school game emulators. The ModRetro is for Game Boy games only, and it actually doesn't play ROMs, but instead you need to get the physical old school game cartridges themselves. Still, just look at this thing. It comes at a price – $199 – but there seems to be good reason for that:

Speaking of custom, Luckey tells me the whole design is in-house, including the custom screen — which is so bright because it’s based on displays used in aviation. He says ModRetro isn’t doing anything quite so exotic as manufacturing its own chips but that, in general, the team went all out instead of making business decisions.

And that price includes Tetris, just as my OG Game Boy did 35 years ago. ModRetro will also be selling some new, original games. It would be amazing if this truly birthed a market for new Game Boy games.

“I don’t see this as a way to make money, I see it as the way to make the world’s best tribute to the Game Boy, something that I’ll be proud of for a very long time.”