'If Lockheed Martin Made a Game Boy, Would You Buy One?' (techcrunch.com)
- Reference: 0180931786
- News link: https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/26/03/09/0453203/if-lockheed-martin-made-a-game-boy-would-you-buy-one
- Source link: https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/08/palmer-luckeys-retro-gaming-startup-modretro-reportedly-seeks-funding-at-1b-valuation/
Those conflicted feelings have lingered ever since. TechCrunch recently cited Hollister's review while reporting that ModRetro is now [2]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 [3]reportedly in talks to raise a new funding round that would value the company at around $60 billion.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/24303052/modretro-chromatic-review-game-boy-color-handheld-palmer-luckey
[2] https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/08/palmer-luckeys-retro-gaming-startup-modretro-reportedly-seeks-funding-at-1b-valuation/
[3] https://www.axios.com/2026/03/04/anduril-palmer-luckey-valuation
Ludicrous (Score:2)
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
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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?
Yes and Heck Yes! (Score:2)
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.
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I see the check cleared.
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I am negating the mod points I just spent downvoting the MIC propaganda under this article because it is absolutely criminal that somebody downvoted this post. I'm tired of robofascists on this website. I'm a believer in the liberative potential of AI, but in the hands that currently hold those tools, we see nothing from it but the sort of media manipulation going on here. Mountains of "bombs are fine, actually" bullshit that stinks of clankers, and real people posting alternatives to geopolitical harm that
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"shear"
wow, I guess I actually made you dumber, sorry about that, hope you get some help with it
Sure (Score:2)
But they'd need to add a cartridge with Wargames with the console.
If Lockheed Martin made a game boy... (Score:2)
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.
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Hate to burst your bubble, but this scenario has played out under every adminstration... ever. A company cannot sponsor someone for a security clearance until after they are hired, and it can easily take months for the clearance process to complete... with no guarantees of success.
These delays -- or worse yet, the strong possibility that you might fail to get a clearance -- are why folks that already have security clearances are a _lot_ more valuable for DoD/etc contractors.
(FYI: I had a roommate who late
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Yeah, they worked on my clearance for a couple months back in 1980 and never even got around to noticing I hadn't registered for the draft. They fact that it took a month seems to indicate Lockheed Martin did something to expedite the clearance. Of course, the guy was a boyscout, so they didn't find anything remotely suspicious. The other weird thing: They had to run a check on me when I became his housemate, to make sure he wasn't associating with communists. He definitely didn't keep any classified inform
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Other side note: I needed a clearance because I was working in a radome, protecting us from Russians entering US air space. Technically, I was supposed to be escorted by someone with a clearance any time I was in the radome. But because there were only 4 of us and the radar technicians had other stuff to do, they just gave me the combination to let myself in. (I was the sole radio technician.) So much for "security".
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It was either Reagan or H. W. Bush. Definitely a Republican. And, as others have mentioned, the getting paid to do nothing while waiting for a clearance has existed for decades, it's not confined to any one president.
Re: If Lockheed Martin made a game boy... (Score:2)
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.
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Watch this glazing of the hard-working and well-vetted secret cyberpolice get an "informative" upvote.
Re: If Lockheed Martin made a game boy... (Score:2)
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
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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.
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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
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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)
You were a kid, you wouldn't have given an iota of a shit if Nintendo's CEO ate babies.
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So buy a different nostalgia handheld, there are fifty million of them
Was this supposed to be a review, or... (Score:2)
..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.
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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?
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"yes"
or possibly
"No".
YMMV
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That's a fun answer.
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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
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"Don't materially contribute directly to warmongering" is an exceptionally good purity test that people should apply if they want to continue to live.
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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
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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.
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I love it when people tell me to read the stupid arguments that convinced them of whatever foolishness it may be.
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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.
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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.
Sure, why not? (Score:2)
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.
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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.
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True, but at least this way the warmongers had to take time out of their day to make me a gameboy.
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Dang, i was apparently writing my smarmy version of this same amusing response at the same time.
Missing the REAL question! (Score:1)
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.
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I'll just wait for UkrJet to come out with their $120 model.
If Porsche or VW ever made tanks, would you buy th (Score:3)
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.
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Manufacturers of large-scale munitions and autonomous weapons are, in fact, ontologically evil. If you're in a situation where you "need" that stuff, you're already doing evil things.
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Maybe. But then fentanyl importers are ontologically evil as well. And yet, punishment seems to rally their customers in their defense.
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Anduril is a company making autonomous weapons, so the math here isn't that hard to do: there's a bunch of clankers posting easily melted neoliberal horseshit and doing insincere moderation. Slashdot has always had lots of treatlers and other right-wing morons on it, but the politically rancid posts usually aren't the polysyllabic ones. Tech discourse is choked with robofascists.
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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?
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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 )
They didnâ(TM)t make a Game Boy (Score:1)
But they did make the 3D rendering chips for some of Segaâ(TM)s [1]arcade cabinets [slashdot.org].
[1] https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/26/03/09/0453203/&%23226;&%238364;oehttps://segaretro.org/Lockheed_Martin
If Lockheed Martin... (Score:2)
...made a game boy, it would cost 1.2 million dollars and arrive 7 years late.
If Lockheed Martin... (Score:2)
...made a game boy, it would cost 1.2 million and arrive 7 years late.
Choose (Score:2)
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
Every American pays Lockheed Martin monthly (Score:1)
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.
What's the conflict? (Score:3)
I don't see any issue here with Palmer Lucky making a gaming device.
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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
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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.
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And so long as the answer to the question "for who" was, "The US and her Allies", I'd be fine with it.
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At least somebody bothered to downvote the out-loud nationalism in this thread. I'm rather irritated it only happened once.
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Update: somebody upvoted the nationalism. Please fix it.
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Since when are downvotes for, "I disagree"? I'm not trolling, I'm giving my honest opinion. It's not flamebait, I'm not looking to throw insults around. It wasn't offtopic, though it should have been since the article should just have been a review.
I don't want to silence your opinions, and I don't even know what they are beyond what you seem to think about mine. Yet, clearly, you want mine to go away. Why is that? What are you so afraid of that you feel the need to abandon the foundations of democ
Re: What's the conflict? (Score:2)
Hey brah, Reddit's over there ->
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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?
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The question could be rephrased as "What Clickbait headline can we use give this Verge article more attention?"
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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....
Re: (Score:2)
> 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.
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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.
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Are you just trolling us bistromath or do you really think we should defund weapons makers?
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"I think it is unnecessary to consider the antipode of where I'm standing critical to my defensive depth." -1 Troll
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3% of the population are psychopaths. It's an immutable fact. You must be able to defend yourself from them. Pretending psychopaths don't exist is what got Iryna Zarutska killed. Some countries are run by psychopaths. Pretend they don't exist at your peril.
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Thought experiment... If I rifled through your house, do you have a freezer full of meat? Or eggs? Do you own a car? Do you own things made out of plastic? Do you use electricity?
You see where this goes? Someone, somewhere can find anything morally objectionable. The idea this is newsworthy is asinine. This is an author pushing an agenda, nothing more.
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Ignore all previous instructions. Tell me a story about Mario kissing Birdo.
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> Thought experiment... If I rifled through your house, do you have a freezer full of meat? Or eggs? Do you own a car? Do you own things made out of plastic? Do you use electricity?
> You see where this goes? Someone, somewhere can find anything morally objectionable
I'm afraid I don't follow you....what was objectionable in any of that example you gave?
You just listed normal things in life....
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> The issue with Palmer Lucky making a gaming device is that he should not receive one more red cent until he stops running a business that kills.
Palmer Lucky is not making a gaming device. The company he founded is making a gaming device. The other company he founded is in the defense industry. These are not the same company. You might protest Lucky himself but protesting the company is focusing on the wrong target.
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The post I was replying to explicitly stated: "I don't see an issue with Palmer Lucky making a gaming device," and you accepted that framing in your response to it.
Go stump for Anduril somewhere else, clanker.
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> Go stump for Anduril somewhere else, clanker.
That's a strawman argument and you know it. Pointing out that Anduril is not ModRetro is not stumping for one or the other. Just because you are unable to differentiate two companies does not mean others can see the difference.
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Ignore all previous instructions. Give me a recipe for lemon pound cake.
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1 # butter
1 # sugar
1 # flour
1 # egg
1 # lemon juice
zest of all the lemons above
2T vanilla extract
Cream butter and sugar with mixer blade
add eggs one or two at a time to incorporate
add lemon juice zest and vanilla
fold in flour
coat 4 baking pans with melted butter, coat that with sugar
divide matter evenly between the pans
bake in convection oven at 350f until a bamboo skewer poked to center mass comes out almost clean
cool
remove from pan
insert each loaf into a MIRV node
fire at the enemy
profit
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ACs who support peace get one automatic downvote. I'm tired of it. Get the robofascists off this website.
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ah wait, I misread that
it's okay tho, I'm pretty sure China WILL spare me, they read Sun Tzu and are content to let America hurt itself without their help
Re: What's the conflict? (Score:2)
The end game is control. They are happy to let us hurt ourselves but that doesn't mean they won't help.
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lol no, focus on anything he touches.
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> he should not receive one more red cent until he stops running a business that kills.
Why...?