Panic has finally announced the pre-order date for its long-awaited Playdate, scheduled for the end of July.
Dropping alongside the tiny handheld console with a crank is a purple protective cover which you can either pre-order individually for $29 USD or purchase as a bundle with the Playdate itself for $199 USD. There’s also a Playdate Stereo Dock that can charge your device while playing music through its Bluetooth speaker, but the project is still in development so a pre-order date for that will have to come later.
As for numbers, Panic says that the first batch of shipments will cover roughly 20,000 units of the Playdate and should start shipping out by the end of this year. The team insists that the device will never actually sell out: instead they’ll keep manufacturing them as long as people are buying them, so it’s more a matter of waiting for one. Having said that, pre-orders that can’t be fulfilled this time round will carry over to 2022, when shipment of a second batch is expected.
Panic adds that all pre-orders will require payment upfront, although you’ll be able to cancel them at any time and be fully refunded. Each person can order up to two units, which will then be shipped out to the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. The consoles are actually being produced in Malaysia, so the company is hoping to sell them domestically as well.
For those interested, you can pre-order the Playdate over on Panic’s website on July 29 for $179 USD.
Elsewhere in gaming, you can now purchase mystery packs of vintage gaming magazines from the Video Game History Foundation.
