Palmer Luckey, the billionaire founder of defence technology company Anduril Industries, is pitching investors on a $1 billion gaming venture aimed at bringing back classic 1990s video game consoles.
According to the Financial Times, Luckey is in discussions with investors about funding his gaming company ModRetro at a valuation of around $1 billion.
The company plans to build modern versions of retro gaming devices such as the Game Boy and Nintendo 64. The move comes as nostalgia for older gaming systems continues to grow among gamers who grew up in the 1990s.
The revived company plans not only to build gaming hardware but also to produce games, including remastered versions of classic titles and new releases. Luckey described the project as a tribute to the original Game Boy and its influence on gaming culture.
Building modern versions of classic consoles
ModRetro has already released its first device, called Chromatic, which launched in 2024. The handheld console is designed in the style of Nintendo’s Game Boy and comes bundled with the puzzle game Tetris.
Luckey has long been interested in retro gaming hardware. In a 2025 blog post, he said he had spent years working on the idea.
“I have been working on making the ultimate Game Boy-inspired device off and on as a hobby for almost seventeen years,” Luckey wrote.
The company plans to develop additional consoles that recreate classic systems, including a device designed to run Nintendo 64 games, according to Financial Times.
From VR pioneer to defence tech billionaire
Luckey became widely known after founding Oculus, the virtual reality company that Facebook acquired for $2 billion in 2014, when he was just 21.
After leaving Facebook, he co-founded Anduril Industries in 2017, a defence technology company that builds AI-powered drones and autonomous weapons systems used by the US military and its allies.
According to the Financial Times, Anduril has grown rapidly as defence spending rises and governments invest more heavily in military technology. The company is reportedly in talks to raise a new funding round that could value it at more than $60 billion.
