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[nial]

By Andrew Webster

Panic’s little yellow handheld has sold a lot more than anticipated. Today, the company confirmed that the Playdate has sold 53,000 units, more than double the initial production run of 20,000. However, a large number of those customers are still waiting to crank away: Panic says that it has shipped 27,000 of those orders, and “the team is hard at work on getting customers their Playdates, and fully expect to deliver all pre-orders by the end of this year.”

In a statement, Playdate’s project lead Greg Maletic said, “When we started, we had no idea how big the audience would be for a weird product like this, but we told the factory: build 20,000. To have now sold more than 53,000 (and counting) is heartening. And this, at a time when parts shortages forced our delivery lead-times out as much as a year. As those lead-times shorten and Playdate delivery becomes more immediate, we’re looking forward to an even better year two.”

The first batch of Playdate units started shipping a year ago. In March, Panic launched a curated games store called Catalog, available both on the device and on the web, and this month, the Playdate saw its price jump by $20 to $199 (the second such price bump). The device also supports sideloaded games purchased from places like Itch.io, and Panic says that, to date, 39 percent of users have utilized the feature.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/18/23687836/playdate-handheld-sales

 

[Spukc]

50,000 Playdate handhelds (only 27,000 have shipped to customers​

being an investor without getting anything in return besides the actual product.
wow

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

They might have to go on Shark Tank. As for me, I'm out.

 

[SeraphJan]

The screen had no back light, un-usable

 

[Mr Reasonable]

I hope people that bought (and received them) are getting use out of them. To me. this feels like the kind of thing that ends up in a drawer after a couple of weeks, unloved and ignored before ending up in landfill.

 

[TVexperto]

for the amount of marketing they got for free by IGN, Linus etc. only 50.000 is not a lot... worldwide...thats like only 600 sold each country... like less than 1 a day

 

[Sleepwalker]

for the amount of marketing they got for free by IGN, Linus etc. only 50.000 is not a lot... worldwide...thats like only 600 sold each country... like less than 1 a day

Well, it is a small shitty gameboy with a crank after all

 

[decisions]

Happy to see success for Panic. Doubt many people on here use it as it is a niche of a niche, but their Mac code editor Nova is amazing and has become my daily driver over VSCode.

They make such weird products with a focus on quality and I love it.

 

[Impotaku]

Happy to see success for Panic. Doubt many people on here use it as it is a niche of a niche, but their Mac code editor Nova is amazing and has become my daily driver of VSCode.

They make such weird products with a focus on quality and I love it.

it's too niche for gaf to enjoy, B&W plus not backlit the graphics whores on here wouldn't be able to cope lol. Still play mine but not as intensive as i used to do but since the catalogue was released i have found myself getting ore playtime while checking out what new stuff has been coming out it's getting lovely amounts of gaming support from all over the world. the game building tools are pretty impressive even more so that poeple who can't program are still able to make stuff.

 

[lughnasadh123]

Too expensive for me for what's just a novelty item. The crank does seem kinda cool though. Having a dualsense version of that as a controller would be interesting.

 

[Ovek]

I've got one and the screen is fucking shit.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Only the bicycling game really looked interesting to me.

It’s a neat little unit, but not $200 neat.

 

[Reallink]

It's effectively a Tiger Electronics game from the 90's that costs $200 US Dollars. Actually, it's probably much less sophisticated and way more outdated than those were by 90's standards. The fact that there are 53,000 people willing to pay $200 for a Furby's Processor and OG Gameboy screen is even sadder than the company catastrophically bungling production. Just goes to show you how large the income divide is in the world and how many people live in completely different realities.

 

[ReBurn]

All of the people in their videos must be working for free

 

[ReBurn]

Happy to see success for Panic. Doubt many people on here use it as it is a niche of a niche, but their Mac code editor Nova is amazing and has become my daily driver over VSCode.

They make such weird products with a focus on quality and I love it.

Nova? I liked it when I tried it but I don't know that I like it for 99 bucks plus 49 bucks a year to keep getting updates and support over the cost of free for VSCode.

 

[Evil Calvin]

Very nice little handheld. Built very well and not cheap feeling at all. I like it. I mean, its for gaming enthusiasts, and doesn't compete with the Switch, but it's not meant to.

 

[emmerrei]

Didn't the CEO or whatever of this thing once sent a copyright strike to PewDiePie on a video he made on one of it's game years before, just to ride the wave of cancel culture and let see how much a "good" guy he was, and that he's fighting for the right stuff?
Just that action is enough to stop advertising this waste of resource, that is good just at polluting the world.

 

[Impotaku]

It's effectively a Tiger Electronics game from the 90's that costs $200 US Dollars. Actually, it's probably much less sophisticated and way more outdated than those were by 90's standards. The fact that there are 53,000 people willing to pay $200 for a Furby's Processor and OG Gameboy screen is even sadder than the company catastrophically bungling production. Just goes to show you how large the income divide is in the world and how many people live in completely different realities.

 

[OmegaSupreme]

That's a lot of suckers

 

[BennyBlanco]

I love handhelds but this thing aint for me

 

[cash_longfellow]

Listen everyone…there’s no need to Panic

 

[DEAD ORIGINAL]

Sony should release a Handheld PS1 have a PS STORE on it surely it would sell tons and cost next to nothing to make.

 

[Drew1440]

Sony should release a Handheld PS1 have a PS STORE on it surely it would sell tons and cost next to nothing to make.

They did that with the PSP and PSVita. They missed the boat by not doing that with the PS Classic.

As for the Playdate, i dont understand why they would cripple it by not including a backlit screen. Sure we all have memories of using the streetlights to light up our Gameboy's back in our parents car but this is ridiculous. Its like Nintendo allowing NES games to be played on the Switch, but you can only play them via an RF out adaptor.

 

[Sakura]

I'd be interested in one if it was like, 50 bucks, but 200? A little too much for me.

 

[nial]

Didn't the CEO or whatever of this thing once sent a copyright strike to PewDiePie on a video he made on one of it's game years before, just to ride the wave of cancel culture and let see how much a "good" guy he was, and that he's fighting for the right stuff?
Just that action is enough to stop advertising this waste of resource, that is good just at polluting the world.

Really? I had no idea, that sucks.

 

[wondermega]

Still interested in this little oddity, and would love to see one in person. If the price was a lot lower with that non-backlit screen I might bite.. or if it was about $50 cheaper WITH a backlight I would go for it. As it is, not super interested, but I am happy when I hear that weird stuff like this is still out there making the rounds.

 

[ReBurn]

Sony should release a Handheld PS1 have a PS STORE on it surely it would sell tons and cost next to nothing to make.

I'd be surprised if many people would actually want this. There are a lot of great PS1 games but you can buy very capable Chinese Android handhelds that can play games from pretty much every console up to PS2 for around a 130 bucks. You have to rip your own games, though.

If Sony were going to make a new handheld they definitely should allow purchase and play of their classic games. But I think people would want new games more than old games.

 

[decisions]

Nova? I liked it when I tried it but I don't know that I like it for 99 bucks plus 49 bucks a year to keep getting updates and support over the cost of free for VSCode.

Well, it has gotten a ton of updates, I imagine earlier in its lifecycle it wasn't really worth it (I only started using it last year). Pros off the top of my head are:

- The entire app is much more responsive and fast than VSCode
- I find the UI to be beautiful/intuitive and VSCode to be ugly, obviously a totally subjective thing but when I'm using the app everyday for several hours it does matter to me
- Extensions are easier to install and manage
- Macros are easier to create
- It feels fully-featured to me at this point; there are not many features I can think of that are missing from VSCode (now we have inline git blame and even a built-in merge tool which I have yet to really try and use as I am used to using a separate app for merge tool). For me the only that is still missing is automatically updating import paths when moving files around, but I only run into this issue once a month or so
- Native Mac notifications. I love running a build on a big project, looking at a different app in the meantime and knowing that I will get a proper Mac notification in top right upon success/failure
- I love how easy it is to create per-project scripts for running/building etc

Remaining issues:

- Prettier extension gets confused and needs to be overridden sometimes (really there is the inherent issue of lacking extension support compared to VSCode, but there is really nothing that I "wish I had" anymore)
- Crashes about once a month (but I have never lost work this way as it always auto-saving and when you reopen the app all windows will reopen automatically)

Some mad lad even made fairly extensive C++ extension for it this year, so for me there is really no language I would use that doesn't have support anymore. But I totally get not wanting to pay for it as VSCode is free. But for me, it appeals to me in a lot of subjective ways over VSCode, and I don't really mind paying the asking price for something I make a living off of using.

 

[Captain Toad]

The screen had no back light, un-usable

Switch has no crank. Unusable.

 

[ReBurn]

Well, it has gotten a ton of updates, I imagine earlier in its lifecycle it wasn't really worth it (I only started using it last year). Pros off the top of my head are:

- The entire app is much more responsive and fast than VSCode
- I find the UI to be beautiful/intuitive and VSCode to be ugly, obviously a totally subjective thing but when I'm using the app everyday for several hours it does matter to me
- Extensions are easier to install and manage
- Macros are easier to create
- It feels fully-featured to me at this point; there are not many features I can think of that are missing from VSCode (now we have inline git blame and even a built-in merge tool which I have yet to really try and use as I am used to using a separate app for merge tool). For me the only that is still missing is automatically updating import paths when moving files around, but I only run into this issue once a month or so
- Native Mac notifications. I love running a build on a big project, looking at a different app in the meantime and knowing that I will get a proper Mac notification in top right upon success/failure
- I love how easy it is to create per-project scripts for running/building etc

Remaining issues:

- Prettier extension gets confused and needs to be overridden sometimes (really there is the inherent issue of lacking extension support compared to VSCode, but there is really nothing that I "wish I had" anymore)
- Crashes about once a month (but I have never lost work this way as it always auto-saving and when you reopen the app all windows will reopen automatically)

Some mad lad even made fairly extensive C++ extension for it this year, so for me there is really no language I would use that doesn't have support anymore. But I totally get not wanting to pay for it as VSCode is free. But for me, it appeals to me in a lot of subjective ways over VSCode, and I don't really mind paying the asking price for something I make a living off of using.

I'll have to try it again. It has been a while since I used it. I don't mind paying for an IDE if it helps me be more productive, but when I last used Nova it was mostly just a pretty good code editor.

 

[AJUMP23]

I have considered getting one. I just don’t know how much I would play it.