Rescheduling the Playdate: Portland company sets 2021 release for unique handheld game device

guest · Nov 4, 2020

Rescheduling the Playdate: Portland company sets 2021 release for unique handheld game device
November 1, 2020
https://www.geekwire.com/2020/resch...ets-2021-release-unique-handheld-game-device/

Panic has announced new plans for the debut of its retro-styled, Pacific Northwest-developed portable gaming device, the Playdate, after COVID-related shutdowns forced the company to abandon its original 2020 release date.

The Playdate was announced by Panic, headquartered in Portland, Ore., in May of last year. It’s an old-fashioned handheld console, made to run black and white 2-bit games on a 2.7-inch unlit screen, with a special hand-crank controller on its side and a modern content delivery system.
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Orders for the Playdate are now planned to open in early 2021 for $149 with an expanded number of launch titles, and mass production of the retail unit will commence in November. Panic intends to announce the entire new lineup for Playdate’s Season One in a forthcoming video update.

“We don’t want Playdate to ever be ‘sold out,'” the company wrote on its official site. “The idea is to make Playdates in batches and do an open order — everybody who wants one can order one. Then, your Playdate will arrive based on when you ordered, and what batch you’re in.”
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Panic has used the time from its unplanned delays to continue to tweak both the Playdate’s hardware and its software, including improvements to the Playdate’s Software Development Kit (SDK) and an emulation program for the Playdate that runs on Windows.
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guest · Jul 22, 2021

Panic's Playdate handheld will be available for pre-order on July 29th
It'll start shipping by the end of the year.
July 22, 2021
https://www.engadget.com/playdate-pre-order-170055510.html

Last month, Panic said that the Playdate, its tiny gaming handheld with a crank, will finally be available for pre-order in July, but did not reveal the actual date. Now, however, it has. The company just announced that you’ll be able to pre-order the Playdate for $179 on July 29th at 1pm ET.

Additionally, the Playdate Cover, a purple protective cover for the handheld, will also be available for pre-order for $29. If you’re going to get both, it makes more sense to just get the Playdate and Cover bundle, which is priced at $199. As for the recently announced Playdate Stereo Dock, however, that isn’t ready for pre-orders just yet as it’s still in development.
According to a press release, Panic said that the first batch of Playdate units, which should be around 20,000, will start shipping by the end of this year.
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Pre-orders will require payment upfront, but Panic says it can be cancelled at any time for a full refund. Orders are limited to two units per person.
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guest · Jul 22, 2021

Panic's Playdate handheld isn't for everyone, and that's OK
An indie handheld made for indie games.
July 22, 2021
https://www.engadget.com/playdate-preview-170047433.html

I’ve been playing with a “press preview” version of the Playdate for the past couple of weeks, and while it’s not perfect, I still think it’s an incredibly charming handheld with a lot of potential. The question is whether there’ll be enough interest — from both developers and consumers — to keep it going for the long haul.

For the uninitiated, the Playdate is not just Panic’s first-ever gaming handheld; it’s also the company’s first piece of hardware, period. Panic made its name making Mac software like Transmit and Coda, and has recently ventured into publishing indie games such as Firewatch, Untitled Goose Game and the yet-to-be-released Nour: Play With Your Food. From its inception, Panic wanted Playdate to be a different kind of handheld; instead of something mainstream like Nintendo’s Switch, it was supposed to be more like the Game & Watch devices of yore, but with a modern twist.

“We didn’t want it to be too cool, but we didn’t want it to be too goofy,” said Cabel Sasser, Panic’s co-founder.
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[...]
As part of its $179 price, the console actually comes bundled with a season’s worth of titles — 24 games in total. The first two games will start downloading the moment you activate your Playdate, and then you’ll get two games every Monday thereafter for 11 weeks.
The indie gaming community has already embraced the Playdate wholeheartedly — tens of thousands of developers have already expressed interest in making games for it — and the company announced that they’ll be able to sell software and games that can be sideloaded to the device.

There’s no denying that the Playdate is a fairly niche device — it’s an indie handheld made for indie games — and that’s the very thing that is so appealing about it. But it’s unclear if interest in the Playdate will last beyond its initial release.
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guest · Jul 29, 2021

'Playdate' Handheld Game System Now Available for Pre-Order
July 29, 2021
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/07/29/playdate-now-available-for-pre-order/

Panic, a company known for its range of apps designed for Apple's iPhones, iPads, and Macs, today announced the launch of pre-orders for its Playdate handheld gaming system.

Panic had 20,000 Playdate systems available for preorder for shipping in late 2021, but those quickly sold out and orders placed now will ship out in 2022.
Those interested in the Playdate can pre-order it today it from the Play.date website.
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guest · Jul 29, 2021

Panic sells 20,000+ Playdate handhelds in under 20 minutes
July 29, 2021
https://techcrunch.com/2021/07/29/panic-sells-20000-playdate-handhelds-in-under-20-minutes/

As we’ve known for about a week, today was the day Panic’s charming/whacky/curious/all-of-the-above Playdate gaming device (and its crank!) went up for pre-order. The buzz around the little retro-inspired handheld seemed strong — but would that translate into actual sales?

The answer, it seems, is a hard yes. Panic committed to making 20,000 units for 2021, selling them on a first come, first serve basis. Any orders after that would still be accepted, but those orders wouldn’t ship until sometime in 2022 at the earliest.
According to Panic’s shipping estimator, those first 20,000 units were gone in under 20 minutes. That first 2021 batch went real quick.
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guest · Aug 23, 2021

Teardown shows the Playdate won’t suffer from controller drift like the Switch
The crank features a simple design iFixit believes won't be prone to failures.
August 23, 2021
https://www.engadget.com/playdate-ifixit-teardown-212829159.html

While Panic's pint-sized Playdate handheld won't make its way to early adopters until the end of the year, iFixit got a chance to look inside the device early. "Unfortunately it didn't come with any games, so a teardown was about all it was good for," iFixit said, for those who might be jealous the company got a unit before they did.

Taking apart the handheld, iFixit found a console with mostly modest internal components. The Playdate has a 180MHz CPU supported by 16MB of memory and 4GB of flash storage. Powering everything is a 2.74 Wh battery with about 25 percent of the capacity of the power cell you'll find inside the iPhone 12.
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According to iFixit, Panic and Teenage Engineering embedded a cylindrical magnet into the shaft of the component. That magnet works in conjunction with a Hull effect sensor to trigger an input from the crank. It's a simple but effective design that should last.

"One thing this crank won't do? Drift. There's no wiper or spring or sensor surface to wear out," the company says, referencing the Nintendo Switch's well-known controller issue.
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iFixIt: Playdate Teardown

guest · Nov 11, 2021

Panic’s Playdate handheld won’t ship until early 2022 due to battery issues
November 11, 2021
https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/11/p...-ship-until-early-2022-due-to-battery-issues/

When Panic first launched pre-orders of its adorable little retro-inspired handheld gaming device, Playdate, it expected the first 20,000 units to ship by the end of 2021 — just in time, they hoped, for the holidays. That first batch sold out in under 20 minutes.

Sadly, due to last-minute battery component issues, even those first orders have now slipped back to 2022.
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Panic goes on to note that they’ve received new batteries and they’re now working as hoped … but shipping everything back to Malaysia, swapping out the batteries and getting them back across the ocean is going to take a while.

Meanwhile, the company also discovered that the CPU it planned to use for all Playdate units shipped in 2022 is now backordered for literal years.
To work around this, the company has redesigned Playdate’s boards to support a different CPU — one they say is more readily available, but that they don’t expect to impact the way the handheld works in any way that the user might notice.
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The full text of Panic’s delay announcement is available here.
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