Retro Dodo can exclusively reveal that Palmer Luckey and the team behind the ModRetro Chromatic are looking into the logistics of a Game Boy Advance handheld console built using the same meticulous attention to detail as the Chromatic Game Boy.
After speaking with Palmer on the Retrospect Podcast, we discovered all of the efforts he and the team have gone to in order to create the ultimate Game Boy, with a screen made from lab-grown crystal sapphire glass and high-quality PBT buttons being just a few of the features used to make the ultimate version of the Game Boy. During the podcast episode, Palmer gave us the exclusive news that the GBA is certainly on the top of ModRetro’s wishlist.
The Chromatic was born from what I wanted to do, not what made sense, says Palmer, ‘I wanted to make the ultimate Game Boy and Game Boy color because that’s what I grew up with. I will tell you that in our Market Research, at least on the handheld side, Game Boy Advance is at the top of the list. Everyone wants it – we get emails all the time, and when we run anonymous surveys for people who don’t even know who ModRetro is, it seems to be the thing.
‘I’ll tell you this as an exclusive – we’re certainly going to end up doing Game Boy Advance someday,‘ Palmer continues, ‘it’s just a matter of the priority list. It’s going to happen at some point because I’m a big Game Boy Advance fan too. There are lots of systems that can emulate GBA games well, and that’s great, but the ergonomics are not optimised for Game Boy Advance games, the button layouts are not optimised for Game Boy Advance games, the type of D-Pad is not necessarily representative of the same kind of pivot feel as the original Game Boy Advance.’
Palmer and the ModRetro team, have a lot of things to think out before bringing out a ModRetro Game Boy Advance device. Palmer explained to us that the GBA and GBA SP have different pixel structures and temperatures. The GBA SP uses a blue-green-red display rather than red-green-blue, so developers back in the day would have had to decide which hardware they would design their games for. ModRetro is considering which pixel structure to use in the new device, and one of the new ideas Palmer has is to make a switchable display that offsets the image between both displays, so you could have both pixel displays on one handheld.
And as Palmer rightly says, ‘If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it right! A great thing about retro consoles is that the Game Boy Advance isn’t going anywhere. If I wait 10 years to do this, it’s not like I’m going to be late to the boat.’
Pre-orders of the Chromatic are due to ship during the Holidays, and we can also expect a whole host of rare and previously lost or never-released games coming to the platform too! Find out more about the Chromatic by listening to the episode in full below, or join us on Patreon to watch the full episode!
