Sam McCoveck
Last April, the little yellow Playdate portable game console made headlines when it “earned a $179 price tag” with its unique design and free, creative line of crank games. Unfortunately, anyone who wants to join the ranks of her Playdate owner, who currently has 25,000, will have to shell out an additional $20 to get his hands on this adorable handheld.
The price increase to $199 is because “our factory recently told us the inevitable news that the price for building a single Playdate in 2023 will go up,” said Panic (untitled goose game) CEO Cabel Sasser said in Tuesday’s Playdate update stream: “Our margins are already surprisingly small. We have absorbed many strange price increases on this strange journey, but this was not avoidable and we are truly sorry.”
For those who want to avoid the roughly 11% price increase, Panic is letting interested customers purchase Playdate at its current price of $179 through April 7th. Customers still awaiting pre-orders (which Panic now says will be completed in “early 2023”) do not have to pay the higher price.
Playdate isn’t the only gaming hardware maker recently forced to raise prices in response to higher-than-usual inflation and ongoing supply chain issues. Meta raised the price of its Quest 2 headset from $299 to $399 last July, while Sony was forced to raise the price of his PS5 in many regions outside the US last August. .
NEW GAMES, NEW FEATURES
In addition to the price increase, Panic today announced some significant new features and content for the 11-month-old Playdate. The latest downloadable system update adds Playdate’s first onboard “catalog” system. Instead of sideloading games downloaded from itch.io or other web-based sources, users can buy and download games directly to their Playdate hardware (sideloading still works, of course).
15 select titles in the first catalog update, including 2 completely free. reel steel, a heist game based on a crank-controlled fishing rod.and Recommended dog, about canine temporary workers who help meet the needs of the city. These titles will serve “as a small thank you bonus to all Playdate owners,” with Panic delivering two weekly to all new Playdate owners, in addition to the Season 1 collection of 24 free games. Other catalog titles are currently available for $1 to $15 and require a credit card to be added to your Playdate account via the web.
Elsewhere in today’s update, Panic also promised that the Stereo Dock, which was first announced nine months ago, is still in development, with beta hardware recently arriving at Panic offices.
Despite the price hike, it’s great to see a small company like Panic continue to put time and effort into a decidedly niche console like Playdate. Here’s hoping the On Hardware catalog opens up novelty little devices to an explosion of new software, much like the App Store did to the iPhone years ago.
