You can finally buy a Playdate without waiting for months

Nearly two years after it first debuted, Panic has caught up on preorders for its adorable Playdate handheld. The company says that it has shipped more than 70,000 of the tiny yellow gadgets — up from 50,000 last April — and that there is now a “limited number” in stock to purchase right now on Panic’s site. (The news comes just a day after Analogue announced a similar milestone for its Pocket handheld.)

“Going forward, Panic will notify the public when Playdates are in-stock and ready to ship,” the company explains. “Customers will still be able to place an order for a Playdate when it is out of stock, but will be notified that their order won’t ship until Panic has a new batch of Playdates ready to ship.” Speaking to The Verge, Greg Maletic, head of special projects at Panic, said that the wait time for orders “should be significantly shorter now,” explaining that “it’s an order that will be fulfilled in the near term anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.”

As part of the announcement, Panic also announced that sales of the Playdate are opening up to a number of new countries, including:

• Bulgaria 
• Croatia 
• Cyprus 
• The Czech Republic 
• Estonia 
• Greece 
• Hong Kong 
• Hungary 
• Latvia 
• Lithuania 
• Luxembourg 
• Malaysia 
• Malta 
• New Zealand 
• Norway 
• Romania 
• Singapore 
• Slovakia 
• Slovenia 
• South Korea 
• Sweden 
• Switzerland

Of particular note is Malaysia, which is where the Playdate is manufactured. But until now, the complex logistics of global shipping and manufacturing prevented the console from actually being available to Malaysian gamers. “It’s been surprising what a challenge it’s been,” Maletic says. “But we think we’ve finally got a decent answer for this.”

As for games, Panic says that there are now more than 120 titles available in its curated Catalog store, which launched almost a year ago, along with more than 800 available through Itch.io. “I don’t know how many people are getting rich off Playdate games,” Maletic says. “It’s still a small market; it’s not enough to certainly make a career out of. But I think it is a decent amount for a hobby, and that’s how a lot of developers have been looking at this as kind of a fun hobby that has in some cases rekindled excitement for writing games.”

When the Playdate launched, it came with a seasonal model, where a selection of new games from notable developers were delivered to the device every week for a total of 24 games. Since then, new releases have only been available for purchase either via Catalog or Itch. But Maletic says that Panic is still interested in doing another season — once it can work out all the logistical kinks of developing two dozen games in secret again. “We really liked how the first season turned out,” he explains. “And we know from our surveys that customers really liked how that turned out. So we definitely want to do it again.”

When it comes to the hardware, though, no changes are on the horizon. Redesigns and new color schemes are relatively common for handhelds, but for now, Panic says it’s sticking with the Playdate as it is. “There’s still, we believe, a lot of unfulfilled potential for the device,” Maletic explains, “so we’re focused on this device.”