In short: another day, another delay. Just a day after Valve delayed its handheld Steam Deck until 2022, Panic did the same with Playdate. However, this time around, there was no shortage of components but a defective battery assembly causing the delay.
Panic, which released the adventure game Firewatch in late 2016, announced the Playdate in mid-2019. The original mobile device eschews powerful hardware and flashy graphics in favor of a minimalist design with a unique crank mechanism and seasonal gameplay distribution.
The initial package of 20,000 Playdates was made pre-order last summer and was picked up less than 20 minutes before the scheduled launch in late 2021. Unfortunately, this mysterious launch window is no longer valid.
Peace! If you pre-ordered Playdate, check your email for a copy of “Playdate Owner’s Update #1”.
There’s bad news (battery tragedy means late 2021 units are now early 2022, check email for your timing) but there’s also good news (Pulp + SDK release dates!!)
Thanks for reading it. pic.twitter.com/03BUolZetY
– date read November 11, 2021
Panic said when the first 5,000 units arrived at their California warehouse, they quickly realized that some were not showing the battery life they expected. In fact, some systems’ packages were so drained that they wouldn’t work at all and couldn’t be loaded.
This led to a months-long investigation, which eventually led to Panic deciding to replace all existing batteries with bundles from another supplier. This means they had to return the 5,000 completed Playdates to Malaysia for new batteries.
The company said the good news is that it has already received the new batteries from the new supplier and they look great.
In related news, Banek said he’s had supply issues (like everyone else) and that the current Playdate processor is two years out of stock. It’s not possible to wait that long, so the team revised the Playdate mainboard (for units manufactured later next year) to use a similar but more widely available processor.
The company said that end users won’t notice anything different when it comes to gaming, adding that it gives them the best chance of charging more handheld devices in 2022.
