Playdate, the handheld crank-based gaming device, has been delayed from late 2021 to early 2022.
In an email sent Thursday, Playdate creator Panic explained that the decision to delay the handheld device due to issues with battery life in the first 5,000 units the company received from Malaysia.
Playdate's intended battery life is advertised as eight hours while active and 14 days while on standby mode. Panic stated that some units weren't reaching that goal, and some others were so drained that the device wouldn't power on at all and couldn't be charged.
The good news? Panic is replacing all of its existing batteries with new ones from a different supplier and says they've already received the new batteries and are plenty satisfied with them.
Panic added that factory production will ramp up to full speed again "in just a few weeks," but that logistics requires "late 2021" pre-orders are now aiming for "early 2022."
The worldwide chip shortage plaguing video game and tech companies everywhere is also playing a role, Panic says. To work around what the company has been told would be a two-year delay on the CPU they need, Panic is revising Playdate's main board so it can be used with a more widely available CPU.
Panic says the new board won't change anything when it comes to playing games, and if you've pre-ordered a unit, your place in line hasn't changed. So if you pre-ordered one of the first 1 to 10,000 and 10,000 to 20,000 units, you'll now receive your Playdate in early 2022. Those in line for 20,000 to 40,000 will receive their Playdates in the second half of 2022, and 40,0000 to 50,000 will be shipped in the "late second half" of 2022. Panic says Playdates past the first 50,000 units will "almost certainly" arrive in 2023.
If you're part of the homebrew game development scene and are looking forward to making games for the Playdate, Panic has a couple of estimated release dates for the Playdate Software Development Kit and the web browser-based tool Pulp. Pulp's public beta will arrive in January 2022, and the Playdate SDK will arrive in February 2022. You can read Panic's full blog for more details.
It's been a nightmare for many companies dealing with supply chain issues, especially those looking to launch new hardware. Valve's Steam Deck has been pushed back to February 2022, and Sony has reportedly cut PlayStation 5 production plans down, which will make it even harder to get one in the near future. Even the older Nintendo Switch can't escape, with Nintendo cutting Switch sales forecasts by 6% for the year, Reuters reports.
Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer/old crank for IGN.
