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Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

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Re: Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

#391

Post by learc83 »

moron4hire wrote: post #347
sarchertech wrote: post #344

I refuse to believe that anyone came up with a crank based input system organically. Here's what I think happened. They decided that they wanted to make a low power black and white game system for people to use while camping. They decided that a crank charger was the best solution for this and went ahead with development. Further into the process they discovered that they couldn't get the power budget low enough to m…

I get the impression that you may not have played a lot of indie jam games. A hand-crank is one of the least weird things I've seen done. Hell, I once made a game where the controller was two people arm wrestling each other. At least a crank is practically usable. As a self-described inveterate hobbyist, I completely understand looking around a workshop full of parts and saying "gee, what could we do with that?" And…

The tone may not have been clear, but my post was at least partially tongue in cheek.

I'm sure someone could come up with this idea and probably did, but getting to the stage of actually releasing a commercial product with a crank makes me think there is more to the story.

Re: Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

#392

Post by stcredzero »

sarchertech wrote: post #344

I refuse to believe that anyone came up with a crank based input system organically. Here's what I think happened. They decided that they wanted to make a low power black and white game system for people to use while camping. They decided that a crank charger was the best solution for this and went ahead with development. Further into the process they discovered that they couldn't get the power budget low enough to m…

I refuse to believe that anyone came up with a crank based input system organically.

Is there a Hurdy Gurdy app yet?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurdy-gurdy

Re: Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

#393

Post by darzu »

mikecaron wrote: post #385
darzu wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen https://arcade.makecode.com ? It's a free, open source, web-based editor for making games, and you can download games to a number of hardware boards, or play on your phone or any web browser. The cheapest hardware right now is $25 from Adafruit [0], but more hardware is coming out all the time. Also this audience might be interested to know that soon there'll be Python support in MakeCode. More details…

I played with arcade.makecode.com at MS Build this year and made a Taco vs. Burgers side scroller on the MeowBit. My kids love it! My daughters and I are coding up something with a duck right now and it's uber fun! Thanks for making that platform!!

Awesome! :) We're really happy to hear that.

If you have any suggestions or bugs, please feel free to comment on https://forum.makecode.com/ or https://github.com/microsoft/pxt. We're still in the early stages with Arcade so feedback is especially useful.

Re: Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

#394

Post by jmull »

lostmymind66 wrote: post #177

This is going to be a tough sell. $150 dollars is very expensive for a portable game system, which will compete with any tablet/phone that can play games that have better graphics and game play. The problem is that this is competing with entire ecosystems of games that have been around for almost a decade.

You know, I think it would actually be a lot harder to sell a $50 portable game system than a $150 one.

Both price points are in about the same range of disposable income for the target audience.

But $50 is a cheapo, side thing... as junky as the maker felt they could get away with. Not necessarily bad (Personally, I really appreciate things that are made as cheap as someone felt they could get away with, especially games. The cheapo-ness tells an interesting story and sometimes these things absolutely amaze me.) but usually pretty bad.

$150 is a centerpiece. It's a product that delivers at some decent level of quality/aesthetics. From the website I think they nailed that. (It looks like the handheld console you've made out of Lego and then imagined the details of what the real thing that the Lego model represents.)

So the $50 portable game is maybe too crappy to be a centerpiece gift (to another or to yourself), but maybe too expensive to fit in as a second-tier gift (e.g., a Christmas stocking-stuffer).

While this might qualify as "the gift of the year". (Or purchase for self of the year.)

The experience on the cheap device will probably be inferior in virtually every way to the phone you already have in your pocket.

But this device is different. Your phone doesn't have a crank. (Nor does whatever handheld system you may already have). It doesn't look like Lego. It doesn't have a black-and-white screen and it doesn't have a new, unique game coming out every week. (well your phone has seemingly a million games coming out each week, but in a diffuse, general way where you have to discover them for yourself and figure out for yourself if the IAP are too annoying or not, etc.)

Games are about new and fresh experiences so anything you already own and have been playing for 10 years is at a serious disadvantage, despite that it's cheaper to keep using it because you already own it.

Re: Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

#396

Post by vscr »

bduerst wrote: post #62
liquidzoot wrote: post #45

Personally the association with Teenage Engineering makes me more concerned that this will not be as exciting as it sounds. TE's Op-1 is a fine piece of kit, but their recent offerings have been very underwhelming. Also the placement of the crank and the form factor look very un-ergonomic.

Can you comment on the Op-1 and what makes it great?

https://streamable.com/ued04

made this in bed at 3am last night. sampled the vox straight from my phones headphone output into the line in on the op-1. its a beautiful piece of hardware that i take with me wherever i go.

Re: Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

#397

Post by pushpop »

mcphage wrote: post #388
pushpop wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It won’t be. The games industry is littered with hardware that flopped. Most indie games fail to turn a profit and even the likes of Sega and Nintendo have released hardware that has failed to sell. Apple couldn’t even make a successful console and they had tried. Yet this thing is weirder and significantly less appealing to the mainstream so they’re reliant entirely only a super niche crowd to turn a profit. While I…

> It won’t be. The games industry is littered with hardware that flopped. What do you think Panic means by successful? From the PlayDate's site: > Stock will be very limited. Sign up early. It doesn't sound like they're trying to take over the gaming industry here.

I wasn’t expecting that to be their mission with a device like this. What I mean by “successful” is two things:

1. Have any longevity beyond a novelty. By that I don’t mean hundreds of hours clocked up; I just mean people will use it for more than a couple of hours before putting it in a draw to never be seen again.

2. Make a profit. Obviously including all the time spent in design et al as well.

Personally I can see this both being unsuccessful in terms engagement as well as financially unsuccessful.

Re: Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

#398

Post by filoleg »

reaperducer wrote: post #142
krrishd wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny, I was also going to comment on how this has a very Teenage Engineering vibe before I found out that they're affiliated :)

I just checked TE's web site, and it's good to see so many products marked "sold out." I hope it means that people are starting to realize that technology doesn't have to be boring.

In my experience, it does mean exactly that. Went to the local modular synth store (which I like a ton; they have tons of events like weekly meetups, workshops, etc.), and they often tend to run out of Teenage Engineering PO series devices. Talked to the owner (as it is a small shop, so he more often than not works the register himself), and he confirmed that they cannot stop ordering new batches, since they get sold out so quickly. And that's despite the fact that they sell it not any cheaper than through other channels (official website, amazon, etc.).

Re: Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System

#399

Post by PostOnce »

abrugsch wrote: post #296
PostOnce wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mobile games: 1] are infested with IAP/psycho crack time gates 2] cant cost more than a dollar or so, no one will buy them 3] have no buttons, and the number of games that work well without buttons is few. 4] have a horrible reputation, people discount games just for being mobile 5] ridiculously fragmented hardware, who knows what screen size or device type you're targeting if you develop for mobile? 6] are too high…

Also check out the pimoroni kickstarter 32blit then. it's a bit cheaper than the play date (but not by much and at full retail cost will be pretty much the same) but has better scope and will be open source. it's not a Pi-in-a-box-with-retropie but a STM32 microcontroller with a light OS/SDK layer on top. a development toolchain that looks a lot like the editors for Pico-8

Sadly I think no one will ever pay money for games for an unadvertised, not-sold-at-retail, open source game platform, which means people aren't going to make quality games that cost money to develop, which means adoption will be all the lower. So, that means it's not "viable" in a commercial sense. I would rather like to run a sustainable business, which seems more plausible with the playdate than anything else on the market outside nintendo/sony.
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