As a pocket handheld of the year, the Panic Playdate handheld with crank has been launched for a year, and officials said that the Playdate handheld has sold 53,142 units in a year, which is far more than their original target of 20,000 units.
Greg Maletic, Playdate's handheld project lead, said the past year has been a great year for Playdate. At first, they didn't know exactly how much audience this strange product would have, so much so that they told the factory to make 20,000 units first. However, they have already shipped more than 27,000 units, which is only half of the current orders. So they look forward to a better new year.
As an overall size of only 7.4*7.6*0.9 cm, it is close to the handheld of the GameBoy Micro. Playdate uses a 2.7-inch 400p*240p monochrome LCD screen without backlight. Although the pixel screen is very sharp, the non-backlit design makes it difficult to use in dark places. In addition to the traditional D-pad and AB function keys, a wonderful little crank is also designed on the side of the handheld. With this crank, players can rotate the crank like a reel animation to move, shoot, or experience the game through the various mechanics of the game developer. These include "Block Soul" designer Keita Takahashi's new "Crankin's Time Travel Adventure", QWOP producer Bennett Foddy's new "Zipper" and more. It's fair to say that many of Playdate's designs are different from today's mainstream consoles, and perhaps its small design and fun indie games are suitable for today's fragmented light gamers.