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The Playdate has surpassed 20,000 sales in just 20 minutes.
The news was first reported earlier today on July 30 by TechCrunch (opens in new tab), after Playdate developer Panic confirmed that its shipping estimator had produced the 20,000 sales figure in just 20 minutes. The miniature handheld device first went on sale yesterday on July 29, and it looks like it’s already proved a hit.
Currently, the Playdate has a scheduled release date for later this year in 2021 (the exact date for later this year hasn’t been specified as of right now). However, this doesn’t mean all of the orders that were placed yesterday are going to get to customers on time, as many revealed on Twitter and other social media sites that their orders instead carried an estimated shipping window of 2022.
There’s still Playdate devices available for pre-order at the time of writing, though. Any Playdate orders placed now absolutely won’t arrive this year in 2021, as the entire allotment of this year’s stock has now been sold out, but any orders placed now will instead arrive at some point next year in 2022. If you missed out on placing an order yesterday, you’re still in with a chance of getting your hands on Panic’s device.
If you’re unfamiliar with the Playdate, it’s a handheld device that’s operated entirely by a small crank attached to its side. When Playdate launches later this year, it’ll receive a steady stream of brand new indie games, with two new games arriving on the platform every week for 12 weeks total. In all, the Playdate is set to receive 24 indie games that you won’t be able to play anywhere else, one of which is developed by celebrated Return of the Obra Dinn director Lucas Pope.
It was actually just earlier this year that Panic revealed that the slate of games available for the Playdate had been changed. Whereas the device was previously set to retail for $149 and come with 2GB total of internal storage, the pricing was changed to $179 with 4GB of internal memory after the slate of 24 total games had been revealed.
For more on Playdate, check out Edge’s hands-on with the console and developer interview for a detailed breakdown.
