Even after a friend reminded me on July 29, I forgot about the pre-order start time. I didn’t get on until 1:05 PM EST. That should have been curtains for me if not for the issues Panic had with international pre-orders Lemonade mentioned. Apparently, a lot of people were frozen out. Whomp. I managed to snag a pre-order in 13000s. That almost makes up for the fuckery last year with Analogue Pocket which still has not launched. The universe is balancing itself out.
Here’s a link to Panic’s podcast detailing how they came up with Playdate if anyone is interested:
Panic Podcast: Season 1, Episode 6: The Story of PlaydateIt’s a little long, but I thought it was super interesting.
I kinda want one of these, but don't want to pay for it lol.
That seems to be the general consensus for people who weren’t all-in like me. I made the terrible, terrible mistake of commenting on a YouTube video. This one dude was saying outlandish stuff like it should be $50, $100 max. I get it. $180 is a lot especially when some of the games are surprises. Personally, that’s the entire appeal to me. I love kitschy stuff like Playdate.
Do people who buy/receive their units in say March 2022 just miss out on the first season of software?
No. I believe you get two games a week as soon as you connect your Playdate with Panic’s servers, and you get the same two games everyone else does that week so it sounds like the games are released on a schedule. My guess is if Games A and B were Week 1 then they will be sent out again for new users on Week 13. The thing you miss out is the Day 1 community aspect of it though you’d get some of that later on for those who download those specific games at the same time as you.