A couple of years ago, the publisher behind indie hit Firewatch announced plans for their own handheld console called the Playdate. Earlier this year, the console went up for pre-order where it was estimated to arrive in late 2021, but unfortunately for those who placed their pre-orders, you’ll have to wait until 2022.According to the console’s maker, they discovered that the initial batch that they received had a less-than-stellar battery life, lower than what they had expected. “As our first 5,000 finished Playdate units arrived at our warehouse in California for 2021, we began to test a few of them. We quickly became concerned that some of them weren’t giving us the battery life we expected.”
As a result, they decided to halt the production of the console while they investigated the issue and shipped the initial batch back to the manufacturer. The good news is that the new batteries they received are now up to their standards and are ready to ramp up production again, but unfortunately due to this delay, they now only expect the console to arrive in early 2022 instead of late 2021 that they had initially projected.
However, they then ran into another issue because due to the global chip shortage, the chip they needed for the Playdate had been delayed and that the component they needed had a two-year wait. As a result, they are now switching to a different CPU, one that can be more easily obtained and one that they claim won’t be noticeably different.
There is still no specific date on when the consoles will be made available except “early 2022”, so those who pre-ordered will have no choice but to wait, but the transparency in the process is much appreciated.
Filed in .. Source: lists.play.date