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If you are a fan of Gameboy style consoles or handheld consoles, in general, you are in for good news as Video game publisher Panic is developing a new handheld console called Playdate.
The console is very reminiscent to old Gameboy. It is bright yellow in color with a black and white screen. It will cost around 149$ USD and is expected to hit the markets in 2020.
What is interesting that it will be following a subscription-based style. You get 12 games for season 1 and each subsequent week you will get a new game. This is very interesting because literally, no popular gaming platform uses this kind of system.
Only one game has been revealed as of now being Crankin’s Time Travel Adventure. It is being developed by Keita Takahashi who has also created other title like Katamari Damacy. Other creators who will be working on games for the platform include Zach Gage, Bennett Foddy and Shaun Inman.
The games will be ranging from short, long to experimental.
Playdate has a hand crank which the first game Crankin’s Time Travel Adventure will utilize. It also has a D-pad, two buttons, Wifi, Bluetooh, USB-C port and an audio jack. The device apparaently took 4 years to develop.
Panic released a statement about the desigining of console-- "Panic built every part of Playdate from scratch, starting with early board designs (using the hotplate in our kitchen to flow solder), our own Playdate OS, a full-featured SDK supporting C and Lua development, a Mac-based simulator and debugger, and more"
To sum it up the console will bend more towards indie titles giving users something different and unique. It definetly has a Nostalgic vibe around it which can obviously please a lot of gamers. Although the console will be released in 2020 preorders are expected to start later this year.
