The famous machine accompanied by a crank faces the final stretch of its development and offers more details about price and availability.
Playdate, the portable console with crank that caught so much attention in spring 2019, enters the final stretch of its development and has confirmed its launch throughout this year 2020. The company in charge, Panic, has notified that developers can Receive a development kit very soon, so you can start working on compatible games and familiarize yourself with the particularities of the hardware.
"We plan to open order availability once the Playdate Developer Preview is complete," they comment. "This means that we will begin accepting orders in 2020, once we have lots of Playdate units available and ready to go out there."
The launch price of the machine will be $ 149; Apparently, the initial design will change almost nothing, with a square chassis in the form of vertical control where the screen will be at the top and the controls at the bottom. On one of the sides will be the crank, whose use in video games will allow you to perform unique actions designed to take advantage of all kinds of ideas; for example, go back or move forward in time, as can be done in the title Crankin’s Time Travel Adventure, by Keita Takahashi, father of Katamary Damacy.
The Playdate screen will be in black and white (400x240p), provided with an anti-reflective glass coating and USB-C connectivity for power. In addition, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 3.5mm headphone port are included.
Playdate unit, published by the developer on Twitter
At the software level, the promise is to be able to offer exclusive titles every month following a seasonal publication model. Greg Maletic, director at Panic Inc., indicated at the time that they were having “an overwhelming response”, which made it easier for the project to go ahead and not simply stay on it. In this latest update published on the official Playdate website they announce that the team has two new members working full time: one for the communication team and one as a firmware engineer.
The success that prompted the announcement of Playdate last May was not begged, with more than 100,000 users registered on the official website to be notified as soon as the product reservations were opened.
