Playdate pre-orders begin in July • Hacker News Board

Re: Playdate pre-orders begin in July

#191

Post by zemo » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 10:39 PM UTC

an_opabinia wrote: post #70

fumar wrote: post #50

I am always impressed with the design of Teenage Engineering’s products but they have an air “pure consumerism”. I think this is that taken to its extreme. A toy that has a crank, retro screen, design-driven accessories, and the games are there but not promoted. Compare that to the gameboy which put its games front and center with the selling point of being handheld. Admittedly, I would get the Playdate to put on my…

> Teenage Engineering’s products but they have an air “pure consumerism”. I got bad news for you buddy, video games don't have a functional purpose any greater than beautiful design. You're sort of barking up the wrong tree if you wanna take a dump on something. But I think this was said in good faith, and you should just consider that Teenage Engineering's Pocket Operators have a totally different, literally unpolis…

> video games don't have a functional purpose any greater than beautiful design

some games do, some games don't. Different games have different goals.

Re: Playdate pre-orders begin in July

#192

Post by Meekro » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 11:41 PM UTC

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…

It sounds like your biggest complaint is that there's no clear roadmap for the SDK/devkit that people could use to get into game development, and no clear plans for an app store or some other way for devs to then publish their games. This makes you wonder how they're going to build up their game dev ecosystem.

What I gather from the website is that they're coming at it differently: inviting a hand-picked group of game devs (both experienced and new) and heavily curating their products into weekly releases. Rather than showing players a giant app store that is mostly filled with crap, you get 2-6 high quality games per month that silently show up on your system.

It's a different approach for sure, and to me it's well worth the price to see if they can pull it off.

Re: Playdate pre-orders begin in July

#193

Post by Meekro » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 11:50 PM UTC

Impossible wrote: post #187

yladiz wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A scam is by definition something with malicious intent, something dishonest, and I think that's why the other commenter took offense. It might not live up to the hype, and maybe it'll be lackluster, who knows - no one has played with it yet outside of Panic. But I think it's fair and not disingenuous that the other commenter took a lot of offense to using that word, because by all accounts it doesn't seem to be a sc…

It seems like there's a modern definition of scam, especially with gamers, which is hyping or marketing a game too well and not completely delivering on promises (often imagined) due to budget constraints, design or technical challenges and often just inflated expectations. This happens with products that a perfectly fine but aren't what people expect, and products that "work" but are buggy or don't deliver all featu…

There's another reason this product doesn't fit the category you've described: they haven't spent countless millions on marketing. They just put up a website, and it's not their fault if the gaming press then turned it into the next big thing.

To me, their website comes off as sincere, earnest, and a work-in-progress-- it's kind of like a kickstarter, except with a really great team. They're not setting unreasonable expectations, and readers should be careful not to conflate what they say with what the gaming press says about them.

Re: Playdate pre-orders begin in July

#194

Post by frakkingcylons » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 11:54 PM UTC

grawprog wrote: post #163

frakkingcylons wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

There are already developers working on making games for it:

https://twitter.com/playdate/status/1293636186045480960

Re: Playdate pre-orders begin in July

#195

Post by szatkus » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 12:14 AM UTC

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 but Nintendo Switch Lite for $200.

Re: Playdate pre-orders begin in July

#196

Post by flanbiscuit » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 12:16 AM UTC

mmoskal wrote: post #146

flanbiscuit wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My initial gut reaction to this product is that I must have it, but I know myself well enough that this would also just sit on a shelf somewhere looking cool but I would never touch it. The games look nice but I'm not a huge fan of it being black and white (just my personal taste). Plus I want to know that there will be a strong community making games, one that won't fizzle out too quick. it's great that Panic is rel…

Not quite PICO-8 but you can try https://arcade.makecode.com/ (esp. the TypeScript not blocks) - you can run these games on in-expensive (~$30) hardware [0] [0] https://arcade.makecode.com/hardware/

Never heard of this and it looks rad so far. I'll give this a deeper look when im back at my laptop. Thanks!

Re: Playdate pre-orders begin in July

#197

Post by Impossible » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 12:23 AM UTC

jswny wrote: post #2

I think the design and concept are really cool but it seems like actually owning it would get old too fast and be more of a novelty. I could see myself buying this if it could emulate NES or GameBoy games though.

Someone has already made a working Gameboy emulator for it. There is also a Doom port.

https://blog.adafruit.com/2020/07/08/gamekid-a-game-boy-emul...

Re: Playdate pre-orders begin in July

#198

Post by zemo » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 1:09 AM UTC

lreeves wrote: post #182

Wheaties466 wrote: post #79

Who is this built for? Serious question. Yeah it looks cool but in a joke sense. It doesn't really look like it is going to do anything well. The accessories look even more like a joke. Obviously im not the target customer, but im trying to figure out who is?

It's for people not really interested in games to buy and then proclaim breathlessly on social media that it's just so amazing and lifechanging , before it goes permanently to a shelf visible in all their Zoom calls to never be played with again.

the idea that people who play games other than the games you play are "not really interested in games" is bizarre gatekeeping.

Re: Playdate pre-orders begin in July

#199

Post by twohearted » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 1:11 AM UTC

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…

It's a bundle of 24 high quality games, by talented, diverse and motivated game developers for ~$8 each. And it comes with a free console. Art is worth paying for.

Re: Playdate pre-orders begin in July

#200

Post by lreeves » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 1:32 AM UTC

zemo wrote: post #198

lreeves wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's for people not really interested in games to buy and then proclaim breathlessly on social media that it's just so amazing and lifechanging , before it goes permanently to a shelf visible in all their Zoom calls to never be played with again.

the idea that people who play games other than the games you play are "not really interested in games" is bizarre gatekeeping.

It's definitely a cynical take but I don't mean it as gatekeeping; I think people get hyped up in gaming devices pre-launch like the Ouya that are better done anywhere else and when they actually try it are underwhelmed and don't use it.