Panic delays its Playdate handheld to early 2022

Panic has delayed the first shipments of its Playdate handheld, which is a kind of Game Boy but with a crank, until early 2022. The company said the initial units were shipped with batteries that did not work as expected, forcing them to send the units back to Malaysia to get new batteries.

Panic also said that it has been affected by the global chip shortage in a significant way. The additional supply of Playdate's current CPU will not be available for two years, according to Panic. To avoid that, the Playdate units coming later in 2022 will have a revised main board that uses one more available CPU.

If you pre-ordered a playdate, you should receive an email saying when your playdate is expected to ship. The orders have now been placed in five different groups, and your email should indicate which group you are in. Panic advises that its estimates are subject to change, so there could be more changes in the future.

The news of the Playdate delay comes a day after Valve's Steam Deck was delayed for two months to February 2022 due to global supply chain issues. And they are not the only game companies affected; Nintendo cut its Switch sales forecast due to chip shortages and Sony is reportedly making fewer PS5s.

Panic also shared some news about Playdate development software. Pulp, the company's no-code development tool, is scheduled to hit public beta in January 2022, while the full Playdate SDK is scheduled to launch in February 2022.