Panic has announced today that the first batch of Playdates that were scheduled to start shipping in 2021, have been pushed back to early 2022. The delay is caused by a critical battery issue caught late in the process which has led the team to replace the batteries of all Playdates currently in production.
“This quickly turned into a months-long, all-hands-on-deck research stress-ball, and we halted production at the factory,” says Panic’s Cabel Sasser in the first Playdate Owners Update newsletter that was sent today to all Playdate pre-order holders. “We made the difficult, expensive call to replace all of our existing batteries with new ones from a totally different battery supplier.”
The batch of 20,000 units previously scheduled for late 2021 are now planned to ship in early 2022. Customers' current place in line to receive a Playdate will not change due to this delay as long as their pre-order remains active. For the full details on the situation and an estimated shipping schedule, we strongly recommend reading the comprehensive Playdate Owners Update from Panic.
Playdate Owners Update in short:
The new needed batteries also mean much better battery life for Playdate
Future manufactured Playdates will have new CPU chips and re-designed boards (won’t change anything to the end product, a needed change due to the ongoing worldwide chip shortage)
The Playdate Pulp Public Beta will launch in January; you will not need a Playdate in order to participate in the Beta.
The full Playdate SDK should be arriving in February.
Season 1 update: Playdate Season One begins when you set up your Playdate for the first time. You’ll get two games immediately, then every Monday you’ll get two brand new games, for three months.
About Playdate Playdate is a brand-new and truly unique gaming handheld system that is a celebration of video games. It’s yellow. It fits in your pocket. It includes brand new games from amazing creators. It has a beautiful black and white screen. And yes, it also has a crank. Created with great attention to detail and affection by app developer and video game publisher Panic, Playdate hopes to capture the spirit of endless possibility and excitement that games have given us since the beginning. Playdate’s collection of games will delight players with their inventiveness and ingenuity. And in addition to introducing players to brand new games, Playdate also encourages people to create their own imaginative games and interactive software using a suite of easy development tools. In short, Playdate was made just for fun.
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