Playdate pre-orders begin in July(play.date) |
Playdate pre-orders begin in July(play.date) |
Besides that, could be a good 5-15 minutes killer while avoiding the smartphone vortex
Playdate October 2020 Update - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24945598 - Oct 2020 (2 comments)
Playdate – December 2019 Update - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22016483 - Jan 2020 (20 comments)
Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19986106 - May 2019 (402 comments)
Nicely done!
[1] https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Pulp-1-1440x997.png> The SDK will be available on macOS, Windows, and Linux. There are two ways to write games: using Lua, for ease of development; or using C, for games that need extra performance. You can also use both languages in the same project. Typical SDK abilities are included: graphics, sound, inputs, text, collisions, etc. We continue to add features every day!
^ that's from https://play.date/dev/
[1] https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2007/12/wind-up-your-la.html
The marketing is flashy, but I have zero interest in this product.
I suspect the market is there to enable modest success, for the same reason cassette labels flourished.
First, it's coming from Panic. They have enough fans that they can probably sell out the first run just on their reputation.
Secondly, the industrial design looks great or at least novel. For $180 you get a neat looking toy and are supporting the development of new stuff. $180 feels like a sustainable price.
It is a lot of money, but for many people on HN $180 is an easy impulse buy.
It's a neat concept for a system, but a bit unfortunate that one can't play Untitled Goose Game on it.
And I’m not even sure about that. At least the info on the link seems very scarce and the featured video was mostly a bunch of people talking and very little gameplay. I guess I’m not the target audience as this didn’t seem exciting to me at all. Couldn’t finish watching the video.
I think that consumers have grown weary of buying individual games, and would rather just pay a lump sum or subscription.
This is it: the peak Hacker News comment. A gizmo with a handcrank and a black and white screen is nothing out of the ordinary in 2021. I bet you could even make it yourself in a weekend if you just use a Raspberry Pi and an e-ink screen!
I think here what will make or break it will be if it manages to reach a critical amount of early adopter to justify making games for the platform, otherwise it's going to end up like the Ouya, hipster version.
Personally I think it's cute and I'm vaguely interested by it, but at the current price point it seems like a tough sale. For literally $20 more you get a Nintendo Switch Lite (admittedly without games).
This is it: the peak Hacker News comment.
I meant it the way asveikau replied.
I have been in Miami this last week and went to the Mayweather v Paul fight and leaving there was absolute hell. Phone was at 2%, thousands and thousands of people were all trying to get Ubers at once. It was a disaster. Took two hours to find someone who was headed to Hollywood and then I charged my phone along the way and got another Uber back down to my Airbnb. #salty
Could be a cool idea to have a "dual mode bike" that could let you pedal to charge your phone. Anything like this exist lol?
as well as an article from a couple years ago about the device: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/05/why-the-quirky-playda...
[0] https://youtu.be/DeWGukDrc1U?t=455
[1] https://surma.dev/things/ditherpunk/
[2] https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.msg136374...
On the other hand, is this games?
It's so tough out there. Lucas Pope obviously works really hard. Just imagine you're an otherwise successful indie game developer, you put out two amazing games, and it still isn't viable to make a third, in 2021.
That doesn't happen with movies. You make two budget positive or critically acclaimed movies, you get to make a third. You don't have to go and make something else.
I didn’t go through all the parent’s sources, can you tell me where this was stated?
yes
Compare that to the gameboy which put its games front and center with the selling point of being handheld. Admittedly, I would get the Playdate to put on my desk and admire as plastic art, but no more room.
So if you add limitations, or extra buttons! you end up with the rare occurrence of something new! A crank is actually a really cool addition just in terms of experimenting with gameplay.
That being said, watching the video[1] on the site is making this look really enticing.
I would normally have the same reaction, except for whole "two new games every week" setup. I actually love these sorts of little timed deliveries, and I think it will keep me engaged.
Also, re: black and white, from what I understand they're using one of those high-contrast memory LCD screens, similar to what's on the Pebble 2. Those look super nice, kind of halfway between e-ink and a standard LCD screen.
I got bad news for you buddy, video games don't have a functional purpose any greater than beautiful design. You're sort of barking up the wrong tree if you wanna take a dump on something. But I think this was said in good faith, and you should just consider that Teenage Engineering's Pocket Operators have a totally different, literally unpolished aesthetic and also sell very well.
They are seemingly, or apparently unpolished. Not literally. You can bet that they spent a huge amount of time making sure it looks unpolished but still good.
some games do, some games don't. Different games have different goals.
It's not clear what you're saying here. What is "pure consumerism"? Are you suggesting that aesthetics is bad? It's a stylish object. People enjoy stylish objects.
> the games are there but not promoted.
that's probably because the developers are still working on the games and aren't ready to fully show them off yet.
That being said, Teenage Engineering is one of those brands that has massively disappointed me over time. When the OP-1 came out it was a truly innovative, beautiful, and robust synthesizer... Despite that, everything they make now just seems over-hyped, over-priced, and homogeneous.
I mean their most recent "innovations" are, no-joke: a $600 portable AM/FM + BT radio, whose only real feature is a massive buffer so you can rewind or fast forward in real-time, and a robot that dances to music.
They're great at predictable, minimal design, there is no doubt there, but that's about it.
There's a million ways to emulate gameboy at this point. There are emulators that run on pretty much every single platform. You can get a $40 handheld on Amazon that can do it.
To me the selling point of this system is that you can play _new_ games that are in a cool retro 1-bit art style.
That itself is a unique thing
Serious question. Yeah it looks cool but in a joke sense. It doesn't really look like it is going to do anything well. The accessories look even more like a joke. Obviously im not the target customer, but im trying to figure out who is?
For $179 + shipping you're buying a small underpowered device with a black and white screen, a handcrank analog controller and 24 games. For an extra $29 you can buy a snazzy case and coming soon a stereo mount that's going to be impractical to use while playing so I'm guessing will be for playing music.
The system's closed and going to be reliant on either their SDK or soon to be coming editor. From the sounds of it, there will be ongoing subscription payments for new games.
They're releasing the system without the SDK or editor. On their developer page they have a bunch of vague 'coming soon' promises with no actual timelines or anything. They have no actual plans for any kind of centralized distribution for games.
Overall, it seems like there's a lot of work or even planning that should have been done before starting pre-orders. At this point you're purchasing less than half the advertised features with no real plans as to when they'll be forthcoming.
Just because a well known name is behind a project doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a good product or a great idea. Plenty of great people have made lackluster things. Especially in the video game world. A lot of this seems to be more hype because of the people behind the project than the project itself.
I've grown sick of create-react-app default <noscript/> textContent.
> Hello! Javascript is required for purchasing, signing up for the newsletter, viewing videos, and other content on this page. Please enable Javascript.
> Your browser doesn't seem to support video.
I’d rather devs focus on accessibility for screen readers etc.
And honestly a good chunk of that population will still just complain anyhow / might not be persuaded. They already kinda made their call.
This would be a good device to spend some time with away from social media and work.
If this was around 80$ I would be all over it.
The Playdate cost includes 20 games by (relatively) well known indie game developers.
Also cool to see the fantastic poolside.fm in a screenshot although the pen-holder dock feels a little kitsch. It's promising, however, that the design partners are Teenage Engineering - known for their Pocket Operators and the truly amazing OP-1 all in one synth[0] for which I strongly vouch.
And, that I expect I will have fun with it.
Fun is where it's at with a Game Console. I like the artistry but that's just a gateway ... to the fun!
I could see myself buying this if it could emulate NES or GameBoy games though.
This is the original Flash version from back in the day. I'm also working on a 3D sequel with Twitch support in my limited spare time: https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/183428
I don't know why, but I have a good feeling that this device will be fairly successful. Maybe it's just good marketing on their part.
I don't really have a good idea of how to make good use of the crank, except maybe add something that allows you to go back and forward in time (at least undo support). Maybe I'll even alter the mechanics to take advantage of it, like that 5D chess game.
safe cracking, catapult aiming, fire burner air balloon adjustment, etc...
I'm planning on picking up some of these to try with some junior-high and high school students in the fall -- if Covid is over by then :-)
That being said, there's something that I don't like in this kind of marketing. To me it looks very unsubstantial and repetitive.
I guess one factor here is the price; for $179 it seems a luxury item and perhaps it's easier to believe that its flaws and unknowns are quirks or features; and that they're not worth mentioning.
> This "stereo dock" doesn't have a price yet, but it will ship with a preinstalled online radio option, dubbed Poolsuite FM, that Panic says will include "expertly curated Soundcloud playlists that will transport you to a magical, sun-kissed musical zone between the past and the present."
This sounds ... suspiciously like Poolside.fm
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/poolside-fm/id1514817810
Way to get out of a trademark infringement maybe..?
http://poolside.fm/ also redirects to https://poolsuite.net/
Both from the UX, to typography, to aesthetic (on desktop at least)
Anybody know who built this?
This is a product of [Panic](https://panic.com). They know how to build a website. And write tools to [build a website](https://nova.app/).
See their other sites: https://nova.app, https://panic.com/transmit/
I'll definitely be getting one, I think a big aspect of what makes it different is the programmability aspect. They're trying to make developing games for it super accessible, and I think it'll be a lot of fun for programmers who don't have the time to make full-on traditional games, or don't want to make decisions about the framework, language, etc. The constraints are what makes it fun. If the SDK is good, it'll be huge.
I feel strongly that that is the case here. From anyone outside of the bubble I feel like ultimately it’s a quirky toy for rich techies that will probably be used a couple times before the novelty wears off and you go back to playing games on almost anything else.
One thing that irks me is that the Dev environment is clearly at least public beta ready. I’d like to see and try it before preordering though.
I think what people want is a platform where a captive audience has to play your game, because there aren't any good games for the platform. If you target modern computers, you're competing with games like League of Legends or Overwatch, which have large teams behind them. If you target this shitbox, your competition is some game where you spin a crank so you aren't late to an e-date. Your chance of "winning" is high.
It remains to be seen whether some exclusive game is so good that it sells the console. I only buy Nintendo products so I can play their exclusive games. I would much prefer to run them on my PC, but they demand an extra $500 tax. Good business model! Maybe it can be yours too.
But regarding the Playdate, I think your take is too uncharitable. Here's a better way to frame it: Steam is great, but it's hard for indie developers to get noticed. What if we could split off a group of customers (who want retro indie games) into their own curated mini-Steam? Developers will surely come and make games, spurred by the confidence that they can get their stuff noticed. And then more customers will come, enticed by the curated ecosystem that makes it easy to get high-quality retro indie games.
It's just meant to be something fun you can pull out and play for a little while. Just like Teenage Engineering's Pocket Operators were designed to be. I think we might have passed the point of realizing how wonderful it is to make something fun and whimsical with minimal profit ambitions.
Another bit is that the people who built it are legendary software developers who created Audion in the early 2000s (who then turned down an acquisition from Apple to become iTunes so Apple had to buy their worse competitor), Transmit (FTP), Coda, Nova, Prompt, and who published Firewatch and Untitled Goose Game. The idea is that it's a gimmick done hardcore and right.
Seems like a huge amount of interest. Personally I love the idea of whimsical creative ideas come to life.
Or maybe it's just a goofy little toy for grownups who remember growing up with a Gameboy by their side, and want a whimsical grown-up version that they can keep in their pocket. With a fidget spinner on the side that also acts as an input for some games.
1) Myself, I grew up on a game boy color and I have a nostalgia for playing games where the developers were so bound by compute resources on the device they were developing for. It allowed smaller teams to be very competitive in game design but also enabled a different sort of creativity than what is commonly seen today in game design where resources are virtually unlimited. I've also been wanting to toy with game development for a while now. This seems like a neat and quirky way to jump in.
2) My kid, I think we've gotten far too good at making video games addictive for kids. I want my child to have video games the way I did, with simple graphics, stories and gameplay that come to an end, unlike games like fortnite that you can keep playing for eternity. Added benefit if he gets to experience trying to play games without a backlight using the streetlights to see as you drive down the road.
Its just if I came across this website and didn't know any better. I'd 100% think this is some elaborate April fools prank.
look at the game titles. Forest Byrnes Up in smoke Casual Birder Executive Golf
It just seems like they're trying to hard not to be "cool" and trying not to take themselves seriously.
I don't know, but it seems buying a standard console would get you more games and less e-waste.
If they are not, then it’s not for anyone.
In the long run I'd think that the lack of colors is a deal breaker, so I think you're right this is very much a niche type of product.
This is highly offensive to me. Making hardware is hard, everyone here should know that. Here we have a company, with a great reputation, taking a big risk to offer us something different, and people's first reaction is to assume bad intentions?
> Just because a well known name is behind a project doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a good product or a great idea
Therefore it's a scam? That is quite some logic there.
They never positioned it as a competitor to a modern portable like the Nintendo Switch so who cares? Do any of those games on the home page look like they need a modern chip?
> They have no actual plans for any kind of centralized distribution for games.
What are you basing that off of? Because they didn't detail the specifics of how the games are going to be distributed?
> Just because a well known name is behind a project doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a good product or a great idea.
Indeed, which is why you can wait to buy it until it's out and has been reviewed by others.
>As for a more official way to distribute them, we’re still exploring different ideas for the best experience of getting games out to Playdate owners.
For a product advertised as a hobby device for devs and gamers, not having a distribution system planned for user made games is not going to help this product thrive.
Things like this tend to be made or broken by the community that builds around them. Look at something like the pico-8. Not exactly the same product, but the markets for them I imagine certainly overlap. The Pico-8 makes distribution of community created content a priority, something that's definitely been instrumental in its success.
Without a community of devs that can support the Playdate and a system they can use to easily distribute content, it's not going to last long.
It seems backwards to try and build a community of devs around a product after it's released. I seem to recall at least one console that died sometime in the 90's for exactly this reason.
What's something lackluster that Panic has made? They certainly have had misses, but it wasn't because of the quality of the product or attention to detail. They've got a better track record than just about any dev shop.
Here's the original pitch, to give you a sense of what their motives were for making it:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190523042100/https://play.date...
What I gather from the website is that they're coming at it differently: inviting a hand-picked group of game devs (both experienced and new) and heavily curating their products into weekly releases. Rather than showing players a giant app store that is mostly filled with crap, you get 2-6 high quality games per month that silently show up on your system.
It's a different approach for sure, and to me it's well worth the price to see if they can pull it off.
> For X you get Y.
Scam would be:
> For X you get WILDCARD.
How much should it be?
These screens are expensive but also very nice.
Or one of the cheaper Chinese devices like the Retroid Pocket or RG531p
There is also lots and lots of cheap emulator devices these days with more buttons and color screens like the Retroid Pocket 2 and Anbernic RG350 that also cost a fraction of the price.
Price is a bit much for me personally.
I think the people who will get a lot out of it are people who get involved in the homebrew community - I spent hundreds of hours on ZZT as a kid, despite the limited ascii graphics. It's not trivial to make your own gameboy game then load it onto an actual gameboy. It seems like they've put a lot of effort into the SDK, game maker, and ease of sideloading new games.
https://blog.adafruit.com/2020/07/08/gamekid-a-game-boy-emul...
Important to keep it whimsical though. The competitive gaming scene is… intense.
[0] https://kindofbloop.com [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kind_of_Blue [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSCObIXDCJc
The most relevant quote to this discussion is probably:
> "My wife played [an early Papers, Please prototype] and said, 'You can finish this, but afterwards, you gotta get a job,'" Pope says with a laugh. "Which is funny, because now, whatever I show her, she's like..." Pope gestures as if he's throwing his hands in the air and giving up. "'Fuckin'... whatever, dude, I'm sure it'll work out.'"
I don't think even 1% of the global population knows it's possible to browse web pages without a GUI.
This is worded like a criticism but it’s exactly why I can’t wait to get one of these.
As somebody who wants no sequel more than Obra Dinn 2, I don't think this is it. I always look forward to seeing Pope's work, though, and I hope he's working on something that he enjoys.
More clear cut value proposition though, you know what you are getting. With Playdate you are taking a bigger risk on the games, and getting much less power.
It will be a success for them selling overpriced hardware during the presale
and thats it
even the kids obsessed with the 90s because they were too young to remember it or too young to be born yet wont even use their chance to actually buy a “retro” product that is reminiscent of the 80s and 90s
DOA DNR
TO makes fantastic and artsy hardware. But it’s a couple dozen artsy indie games. The competition is free, AAA quality, available on all platforms and what everyone’s friends are playing.
By industry measures, it will not be a “commercial success”.
Basically, they don't have resources yet to open it up and support it enough for people to have good experience with it.
You need to let people start getting ready for this any way you can, especially as this is a potentially niche product that's not going to have any major developers working on it.
Best I can do right now is work on game logic elsewhere and try to be ready to do a port when they finally go public with it, hopefully before its official release.
Maybe they don't? They seem to have plenty of games coming out in time for launch from great developers.
See all of Peter Molyneux's games post Bullfrog, No Man's Sky at launch, Cyberpunk 2077, Magic Leap. I agree that putting Playdate even in that category because the SDK won't be ready at launch is kind of ridiculous.
To me, their website comes off as sincere, earnest, and a work-in-progress-- it's kind of like a kickstarter, except with a really great team. They're not setting unreasonable expectations, and readers should be careful not to conflate what they say with what the gaming press says about them.
Emulating SNES and Genesis games was fun back in 1997 but really are we not tired of that by now?
Just how many times can you go through the emulator dance of downloading all the games then playing each for less than 3 minutes before you give up.
What makes this any different?
I think the price is pretty fair for a neat, boutique thing.
If looking at raw CPU speed is what makes a console fun for you, and creativity doesn't matter at all, this is clearly not your platform. Some of us have different metrics for what makes game platforms fun that aren't just it costs less than a 24 pack of pepsi, 8000 choices of softcore pornography mahjong games, and how many polygons you can throw on a screen while cooking an egg on the graphics card.
The Alibaba consoles are just straight up creativity death - their business model is to bottom feed what tiny value remains out of old games they didn't make. Their long term accomplishment, should society be awful enough to let them solely succeed, will be the death of any ability to make new games or innovate in any way, leaving the entire non-Nintendo industry to just bottom feed compete with each other on slightly cheaper consoles in an eventual race to the bottom, while Nintendo releases the 600th version of Mario Kart, because it's easier and safer for them to copy than to innovate.
Playdate has a real chance to inject some creativity, competition, and openness to the platform world, and there's nothing especially novel about that to anyone that has read the history of computing and knows what games like Spacewar did. These kinds of "novelties" have a way of changing everything in ways nobody can really understand at the time.
CNC milled novelty crank.
But without taking orders years in advance.