In midst of announcements of next-gen offerings by major console makers, Panic Inc. came out with a peculiar, albeit incredibly cute offering in Playdate, and the developer insists the handheld is a shrine to all true gaming enthusiasts.
In an interview with the Edge magazine, Panic's co-founder Cabel Sasser said both he and the company need to make things they're proud and excited over.
In case you missed the , Playdate is Panic's upcoming handheld that has a 2.7 inch, 400x240 black and white screen (Game Boy screen is 2.6 inches at 160 × 144 ), but it's the crank that truly sets it apart.
"We're building this for people who love videogames. People who will never forget burning the bush in Zelda and uncovering the stairs to a dungeon, or people who remember laughing uproariously as they roll the ball of stuff in Katamari, or even people who got chills when they were riding their horse in Red Dead Redemption towards Mexico and that song started playing" he said.
This is why Panic reached out to some prominent indie developers to create games specifically for Playdate, and some are actually exclusively played with the crank, like Crankin's Time Travel Adventure.
Playdate's price of $149 includes the Season One of games, with a new game arriving each week. The company wants to keep most of them a secret until the device notifies you, as a present of sorts.
"[Playdate is for] people who play Firewatch one week or Uncharted the next, they don't care about the platform, and they don't care about the genre or the number of As, they just care about that indescribably electric feeling of experiencing something new that games give us. That's been my whole life as I played videogames. So Playdate, in a way, is a shrine to that feeling", he said.
Panic Inc.
Playdate launches in early 2020 and we suppose that is Season One is deemed a success, there's no reason Panic shouldn't follow it up with another.
According to the company's Twitter , more than 77,000 people are on the waiting list and many developers expressed interest, so the future sure seems bright.
Playdate, compact and slim handheld coming from Panic Inc.
- Image: 1 / 3
