The crank-based portable gaming curio Playdate has now sold more than 53,000 units – more than double the number originally forecast by its maker Panic.
Playdate was initially announced back in 2019, promising a unique (and oddly adorable) spin on portable gaming that would see Panic teaming up with a host of noted indie game designers – including Zach Gage and Bennett Foddy to produce a curated 24-game “season”, as well as offering itch.io sideloading support and, most recently, an on-device store.
It was a pitch that clearly caught people’s imaginations; Panic has now revealed the first 20,000 Playdate units produced last April based on its initial sell-out prediction within 20 minutes of being made available for purchase via a queuing system.
Panic says that Playdate pre-order sales of the monochrome device (which recently bumped its price up to $199 USD) are now more than double their estimated amount, with 53,142 units purchased to date. 27,000 of those Playdates have now been shipped to customers, it notes, with the rest due to be delivered by the end of this year.
“It’s a pleasure to now sell over 53,000 (and counting),” the company wrote in a statement accompanying the news. “And this, at a time when parts shortages have forced our delivery lead-times as high as a year. As lead-times shorten and playdate deliveries become more immediate, we can expect a better year.” Waiting for two.”
Eurogamer’s Christian Donlan was impressed with the playdate when he reviewed it last year, calling it “a fascinating puzzle in its own right”, while Eurogamer contributor and anthropologist Edward Hawkes recently took an adventure into the Tanzanian jungle , Appreciated its strange charm in the shadows. From the Baobab tree.