Playdate - $199 starting April 7

March 7, 2023

It’s a story we’ve all been hearing recently: costs are going up for parts, shipping… you name it. Panic is unfortunately no exception to these trends: our manufacturing partner recently gave us the news that the cost of building a Playdate is going up. And given our already tight margins, we’re at a point when we need to adjust Playdate’s price.

We don’t take this lightly: we’ve always wanted Playdate to be as affordable as possible. In that spirit, we’ve done two things that will hopefully soften the blow:

• The price increase is what we hope you’ll think is modest: from $179 to $199.
• The increase will take effect not today, but one month from today: April 7. That’ll give you time to lock in today’s $179 price.

We also hope that today’s launch of Catalog—our new, on-device game store—will convince you that Playdate is an amazing value. (And Catalog is only the newest resource for games: it arrives on top of our 24-game Season One that’s included with every Playdate, and the 425-and-counting titles you can sideload from game stores like itch.io.)

We’ve been deeply touched by the excitement we’ve felt from happy Playdate owners, and (to be honest) shocked by the enthusiasm shown by our robust game development community. Hit games like Zipper, Saturday Edition, Pick Pack Pup, Bloom, and A Joke That’s Worth $0.99—along with many more—have validated what we believed at the beginning: that there is room in this market for a very quirky, very different kind of game console. And room as well for the very offbeat games it inspires.

Thanks so much for your amazing support and encouragement.