Panic has announced today that the first batch of Playdate consoles that were scheduled to start shipping in 2021, have been pushed back to early 2022. The delay is caused by a critical battery issue caught late in the process which has led the team to replace the batteries of all Playdates currently in production.
“This quickly turned into a months-long, all-hands-on-deck research stress-ball, and we halted production at the factory,” says Panic’s Cabel Sasser in the first Playdate Owners Update newsletter that was sent today to all Playdate pre-order holders. “We made the difficult, expensive call to replace all of our existing batteries with new ones from a totally different battery supplier.”
The batch of 20,000 units previously scheduled for late 2021 are now planned to ship in early 2022. Customers’ current place in line to receive a Playdate will not change due to this delay as long as their pre-order remains active. For the full details on the situation and an estimated shipping schedule, we strongly recommend reading the comprehensive Playdate Owners Update from Panic.
Playdate Owners Update in short:
- The new needed batteries also mean much better battery life for Playdate
- Future manufactured Playdates will have new CPU chips and re-designed boards (won’t change anything to the end product, a needed change due to the ongoing worldwide chip shortage)
- The Playdate Pulp Public Beta will launch in January; you will not need a Playdate in order to participate in the Beta.
- The full Playdate SDK should be arriving in February.
- Season 1 update: Playdate Season One begins when you set up your Playdate for the first time. You’ll get two games immediately, then every Monday you’ll get two brand new games, for three months.
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