Today, Panic announced that the first installment of their upcoming handheld device, Playdate, has been pushed back from its 2021 shipping schedule due to a critical battery issue. Since this issue wasn’t caught until late in the process, it result in the team having to replace the batteries of all Playdates currently in production.
As such, they’ve decided to delay the release until some point in 2022. When addressing the issue, Panic’s Cabel Sasser sent the following to all pre-order holders via a newsletter update.
“This quickly turned into a months-long, all-hands-on-deck research stress-ball, and we halted production at the factory,” said Sasser.“We made the difficult, expensive call to replace all of our existing batteries with new ones from a totally different battery supplier.”
You can find the full summary of what the newsletter entailed bulleted below:
- 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.
For more information, head on over to the official website. We will also be sure to keep you updated here at Twinfinite if any more news becomes available.
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