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Indie publisher Panic has announced that it has sold all 20,000 of its initial batch of Playdate consoles in just 17 minutes since opening pre-orders over the weekend.
As spotted by GamesIndustry.biz, this means that all consoles earmarked for launch later this year have been sold. Subsequent orders following that and going forward are expected to arrive in 2022. The number of units made for next year will be adjusted according to demand.
The company also announced a few other interesting statistics, including noting that 68% of orders were made “domestically” while 32% were international. There was also a brief outage period for 15 minutes on the first day of sales, thanks to another client of the shipping company also launching a product at the same time. Thankfully, orders since settled, and you can still order the console via the website.
In case you missed it, the Playdate is a monochromatic handheld console with a crank. It’ll feature 24 games in its first season, with a new game being launched every week. Panic say its next steps will include getting the Playdate SDK and Pulp tool ready for launch and testing the delivery of Season One’s games. You can still order a Playdate console yourself over on the official website.
So! What's next?
1. Big cool conference call with the factory next week
2. Getting our full Playdate SDK (and our Pulp no-code tool) ready for launch
3. Testing Season One's wifi-based delivery, a lot
4. Getting ready for Late 2021 and beyondWe're lucky to have you with us 💛
— Playdate (@playdate) July 30, 2021
