Publisher Panic announced on April 18 that the company’s handheld game machinePlaydateIt has been one year since the start of shipment, and it has been revealed that it has sold 53,142 units so far.
Panic develops applications for PC/mobile, as well as “Untitled Goose Game ~ The mischievous goose has arrived! A company that sells games such as ~ and Firewatch. The company announced Playdate in 2019 and entered the gaming hardware business.
Playdate is a palm-sized portable game machine of 74 x 76 x 9 mm. In addition to the cross key and AB button, the main feature is that the crank is mounted on the side. Analog input is possible by turning the crank back and forth, and you can develop games that take advantage of this. The display is 2.7 inch monochrome.
As for the corresponding games, 24 works are bundled with the Playdate main unit, and after the main unit is first started, two games are provided every week, which is a unique style. Among them are notable works such as “Crankin’s Time Travel Adventure” by Keita Takahashi, known for “Katadamama”, and “Zipper” by Bennett Foddy, who worked on “Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy”. there is Currently, the official store catalog is implemented in Playdate, and more compatible games are being distributed. For game developers, a development kit for Playdate is also provided.
Playdate will start accepting reservations in July 2021. Panic did not know how much demand there would be, so he set the initial production volume at about 20,000 units, but as a result, it was sold out within 20 minutes after the reservation started. At that time, due to the influence of other companies’ big products being released at the same time, the order system server was also hit by trouble.
After that, a problem with the installed battery was discovered, and the start of shipment of the first production was postponed from the end of 2021 to the first half of 2022, and this time it will be one year since the start of shipment. A total of 53,142 units have been sold so far. Originally, the plan to ship 50,000 units by the first half of 2023 was announced, so it can be seen that production and shipment were almost as planned.
This announcement also mentions Playdate compatible games distributed on itch.io. More than 400 titles have been released so far, and 39.7% of Playdate owners say they’ve sideloaded and enjoyed one of those titles at least once. Compatible titles distributed on external sites can be downloaded directly to the user’s Playdate body by logging in to the Playdate official website and uploading them.
Regarding the future of Playdate, Panic says that while they are still taking pre-orders and shipping them sequentially, they would like to move to a system where they can be shipped immediately. At the same time, it is expected to start shipping the peripheral Stereo Dock that can be used in combination with Playdate.
Playdate isOfficial siteReservations are being accepted at The price has been raised by $20 from April 7 this year to $199 (about 27,000 yen). If you pre-order it now, it will ship in the second half of 2023.
