Chromatic
A tech company is bringing back the 90s gaming scene...with much better hardware.
Let me set the scenario for you.
The year is 1997. It’s Friday night. Mom just picked up a couple pizzas from Dominoes along with a two liter bottle of Surge (drink) and a VHS rental copy of Independence Day from Blockbuster. You’ve got three friends coming over for a sleepover. The couch fort has been assembled. The Nintendo 64 is plugged in with four controllers, one for you and each friend. Mario Kart is up first, followed by Goldeneye, then Star Fox. You don’t realize it now, but you’re having a peak moment in life, and you’re not going to get it back.
Well, at least not Blockbuster, because they thought Netflix wasn’t worth the money.
Oh, and Surge, which is probably for the best.
ModRetro
I got to thinking recently about the scenario above. I’m not sure I ever had the exact experience, but certainly close. I was born in 1988, so while I missed the 80s rock scene (bummer), I had a front row seat to the Gameboy/N64 gaming era. The Nintendo 64 specifically was significant, being it brought a new 3D landscape to modern gaming, allowing players a much more immersive gaming experience that has only expanded as years have gone by.
Those consoles were designed not only for individual use, but group play as well. Not through internet play (which hadn’t quite taken off yet), but a literal hardware connection. The Gameboy was designed with a link port to allow players to play with/against one another on separate consoles. The Nintendo 64 came with a four controller port, all in one console, finally allowing more than two people to go at it on games such as Mario Kart, which on previous versions only allowed up to two players at one time.
Fast forward thirty years later (N64 released in 1996), gaming has changed significantly. The last time I owned a gaming console (PS2) was in high school, before I sold it to GameStop upon graduation. I haven’t kept up at all with modern gaming. From what I understand most multi player games are played online now, demanding an internet connection to sync up so you can exchange profanities with complete strangers, which I suppose is thrilling in its own way.
ModRetro is a company that started back in 2009 by a young man named Palmer Luckey, who later would develop the Oculus VR that is now owned by Meta. ModRetro was originally an online forum for interested parties to share ideas on custom built video game consoles. In 2023, Luckey re-established it as a hardware company. Its first product released was the Chromatic, which is a reimagining of the Gameboy Color, except made of a much sturdier and lightweight magnesium shell with pixel perfect display.
Around the time of the holidays this past year was when I first learned about the Chromatic. Immediate nostalgia kicked in. Memories of me playing my Gameboy Color around the time of the late nineties, linked up with my friends on the playground after school to trade and battle Pokemon. It was an opportunity I could have passed up, and my wife probably wished that did, but I didn't.
I bought one.
The Chromatic
Besides the hardware, the coolest spec about the Chromatic is that it is compatible with both Gameboy games and games made specifically for the ModRetro platform. The picture and sound are excellent. It’s configured with the original Gameboy button setup, to include the cable link port, simulating the exact experience of a Gameboy Color. It works off batteries, and also has a link to plug directly into your PC. The benefit of the PC connection is that ModRetro has their own software you can download to update the firmware on your device to be sure you always have the most up to date gaming experience.
All Chromatic console purchases come with a free copy of Tetris, which is still a classic. A lot of the classic games for GameBoy (and other retro consoles) are no longer manufactured, but companies like DK Oldies collect these types of games and refurbish them for modern play. Super Mario, Donkey Kong, Pokemon…all still compatible on the Chromatic.
The next product to be rolled out by ModRetro is the M64. As you can guess, the concept is the same as the Chromatic/Gameboy Color, except the M64 will be an updated Nintendo 64 experience. The new console is taking pre-sale orders now and is expected to be released later this year.
Retro Future?
The final act of the sleepover scenario, as detailed in the beginning, was when parents would come in the next morning and insist on you and your friends to go outside and stop spending so much time in front of the television. As an outdoor and fitness enthusiast looking back, I couldn’t agree more. Better memories are had in the physical world, not the digital.
With the development of mobile phones, screen time has only surged (not the drink) since the 90s. Thirty years later, fueled by declining community involvement and heavy social media use, human loneliness is more prevalent than ever. With that being said, I don’t condone spending hours a day inside a digital world, but rather prioritizing nature and human connection. It’s how our bodies were intended to thrive.
As a millennial, it’s exciting to see modern/retro gaming consoles make their way back on to the scene while maintaining the original experience. Anything can be bad if abused, even gaming. Spending a whole weekend locked inside your room with frozen pizza, soda, and crashing out on Halo? Probably not the best use of your time. Getting a group of friends together on Saturday night to rib each other over Mario Kart for a few hours? In my opinion, good for the soul.