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Playdate pre-orders begin in July

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Re: Playdate pre-orders begin in July

#161

Post by jonny_eh »

grawprog wrote: post #148

I've gone through the page a bunch of times now, read through the hn comments here and the arstechnica article linked in the top comment. But I'm still having a hard time appreciating this as art or even something non-gimicky and even slightly scammy. 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…

> slightly scammy

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.

Re: Playdate pre-orders begin in July

#162

Post by jonny_eh »

cableshaft wrote: post #140
nickflood wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They addressed the SDK availability here - https://twitter.com/playdate/status/1400849495198289920?s=19 Basically, they don't have resources yet to open it up and support it enough for people to have good experience with it.

I don't think that's a good enough reason. They could make it a 'use at your own risk' type situation and/or let people band together in a group and talk out and try to work through any issues they have without their involvement. 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…

> You need to let people start getting ready

Maybe they don't? They seem to have plenty of games coming out in time for launch from great developers.

Re: Playdate pre-orders begin in July

#163

Post by grawprog »

frakkingcylons wrote: post #152
grawprog wrote: post #148

I've gone through the page a bunch of times now, read through the hn comments here and the arstechnica article linked in the top comment. But I'm still having a hard time appreciating this as art or even something non-gimicky and even slightly scammy. 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…

> For $179 + shipping you're buying a small underpowered device with a black and white screen 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 specifi…

>What are you basing that off of? Because they didn't detail the specifics of how the games are going to be distributed?

https://play.date/dev/

>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.

Re: Playdate pre-orders begin in July

#164

Post by grawprog »

jonny_eh wrote: post #161
grawprog wrote: post #148

I've gone through the page a bunch of times now, read through the hn comments here and the arstechnica article linked in the top comment. But I'm still having a hard time appreciating this as art or even something non-gimicky and even slightly scammy. 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…

> slightly scammy 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…

That seems awfully disingenuous. The rest of my post is why i consider it slightly scammy. A lot of buzz with less substance than promised and no actual commitments to the devs they're also advertising too that will inevitably be the ones that support the playdate in the long term.

Re: Playdate pre-orders begin in July

#165

Post by Brendinooo »

grawprog wrote: post #148

I've gone through the page a bunch of times now, read through the hn comments here and the arstechnica article linked in the top comment. But I'm still having a hard time appreciating this as art or even something non-gimicky and even slightly scammy. 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…

>Plenty of great people have made lackluster things

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...

Re: Playdate pre-orders begin in July

#166

Post by Ekaros »

arthurcolle wrote: post #93
mmastrac wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lazy googling suggests 30-50Wish [1]. The gameboy uses about 1W, so maybe a 1:30 ratio of time cranking to playing? Lazy math, feel free to correct. [1] https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2007/12/wind-up-your-la.html

1 minute of cranking for 30 minutes of play time seems honestly pretty great. Wish I could do that with an iPhone! 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 pho…

Dynamo lamps have been around for decades if not longer, but they make biking less fun. Output isn't too great either at 6V/3W that seems to be typical. Though it can be bought for cheap 5€ to 36€...

Re: Playdate pre-orders begin in July

#167

Post by xsmasher »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #156
grawprog wrote: post #148

I've gone through the page a bunch of times now, read through the hn comments here and the arstechnica article linked in the top comment. But I'm still having a hard time appreciating this as art or even something non-gimicky and even slightly scammy. 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…

>For $179 + shipping How much should it be?

You can buy a handheld that plays all 16-bit games, GBA games, mame, etc. for under $50.

Re: Playdate pre-orders begin in July

#168

Post by thih9 »

They seem very efficient at marketing; the product seems very recognisable, polarising and there have been many previous discussions [1] here already.

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.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27440015

Re: Playdate pre-orders begin in July

#169

Post by Ekaros »

tengbretson wrote: post #48

The styling of this thing is beautiful. That said, is it too much to ask that they come up with their own original name for a device that is patently a solo experience instead of hijacking a term for humans interacting with each other in physical space?

I wonder how well the name will go over with wider audience. My first thought was is that some kind of dating service? Why is it on HN...
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