Review: Playdate earns its $179 price tag with cute design, memorable games
Cranking in downtown Seattle. [credit: Sam Machkovech ]
The cute, portable, and banana yellow $179 Playdate console is now shipping to its first batch of preorder customers, so we're now free to review the quirkiest gaming system in years.
Thanks to chip shortages and general manufacturing chaos, buying Playdate is much less fun than using it. If you preordered the system in July 2021 after reading my hands-on preview, great. If you waited for a proper review like this one, however, expect a backorder queue of no fewer than eight months. (At least Panic say it will make as many Playdates as people want to buy, instead of pulling an NES Classic and limiting production.)
The lock screen can be customized with an analog clock, a digital clock, or this "word clock." [credit: Sam Machkovech ]
To those who ran with my previous optimism about Playdate's squat form factor, quirky games, and unique crank control system, I am happy to report that I didn't lead you astray-so long as you heeded my specific bias. As I wrote in July:
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