Playdate's are moving pretty fast

Managed to get my preorder in at around 10:15 after some international shipping weirdness and by my order number they've already reached 16000 at that point. First allocation was 20000 so hopefully they can produce more in a reasonable time.

Hopefully they'll ship to Mexico next batch, another hardware release that doesn't ship over here

@yee1992: I didn't realize that. I would've assumed being a member of NAFTA would make shipping a piece of cake. I can't imagine what the rationale is omitting Mexico, but including other Spanish speaking nations.

@smellylettuce: yeah, every company seems to forget that we're part of North America, I didnt want to go through the hassle of shipping to a PO Box especially now that the borders are still closed, who knows what'll happen by release, but hopefully playdate and Valve can work things out with whomever things need to be worked out with in order to ship over here

After all the talk about them not anticipating selling out, I was surprised to see how quickly that first allotment sold. I didn't pre order one, but I'm just not at the point financially to be able to afford one at the moment so I didn't try.

Does the first "season" of games ever expire though? Like if I don't get one until late 2022, will some of the previous games no longer be available?

From what I understand the 1st season will come with the device and then you'll be able to buy additional seasons or packs later on.

edit: I'm pretty sure the first set of games will always be included. Not sure how the staggered roll out will happen if a device is purchased/activated mid season though.

@noboners:

I'd be pretty surprised if they weren't available in the future. The way it was laid out on their website made it seem like new seasons would just add more games. However, I wouldn't be surprised if future seasons were no longer free.

This thing being nearly $300 with taxes and shipping put it from very on my radar to very off my radar again.

$200 + shipping I would've been ok. But that close to $300 is like, PS5/XSX money.

My understanding is that your season begins when you set up your account/device. So if you get your Playdate on Jan. 1 and start there, you'll get your next two games on Jan. 8. then Jan. 15, etc., getting the same games as everybody else but on a "delayed" schedule.

I think I saw them say at one point, though, that you could opt out of that and just receive all of the games released to-date if you want to, but don't quote me on that.

Really surprised I managed to get one. I feel it's fairly expensive for what the games will probably be, but as a hobby game-dev I really want to fiddle with it and try to make some mechanics with the crank...

@yee1992: Wow. That is super strange. You'd think they'd endeavor to ship to every 1st world country especially one as wealthy as Mexico.

I looked up the gaming market in Mexico and while it's not huge it is unsurprisingly bigger than than the one in Spain.

Maybe Panic and others see the EU as one block and don't think Mexico is worth the logistical hassle? Though that seems kind of thin when talking about a mail order product.

I know Brazil is a large gaming market that is historically underserved but that's due to weird regulatory reasons.

You mentioned that this kind of thing has happened before. Do any notable examples spring to mind?

I managed to get in the 15000s so I should have one by the end of the year of all goes well. I'm more excited for this than the new consoles, to be honest.

I think it was a mistake to not have the dock ready to pre-order along with the system. They likely won't sell many of those, IMO. I'm probably not going to pay another shipping charge to get one.

@paulwgraham: thankfully the new consoles got here day one, recent examples are the steamdeck and any other valve hardware release, their vr headset, steam controller, link, etc. The nintendo snes, nes controllers for the switch. I was looking into getting a racing wheel in the near future and fanatec doesnt ship over here. Also the ocassional limited/deluxe edition of a game like metroid dread and now the playdate, at least these are the more recent ones i remember

Its seems neat, will they ever be at gamestop

@yee1992:I dug into this a bit more and I discovered that all major American shippers: USPS, FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc. prohibit sending electronics to Mexico.

I looked it up and it seems that because of Mexican regulations in order to legally import electronics into Mexico you need to be/use an officially licensed importer.

I'm no expert but I imagine that would also create additional needs for warehousing and distribution.

So I think the reason you're seeing a lot of companies opting not to sell their niche hardware in Mexico is because for a foreign company to sell there they would have to:

A.) Produce and ship enough product to Mexico in order to justify warehousing it.

B.) Incur the extra costs of importation, warehousing, distribution, etc.

C.) Believe they can sell all of that aforementioned niche product into what is still a small-ish developing gaming market.

Again, I'd like to stress that I don't really know what I'm talking about but this theory does track with the kinds of products you're seeing. That is to say mainstream stuff that is practically guaranteed to sell eventually but no niche or made to order mail order products.

I have to say that while I know that this stinks for you I find little market quirks like this fascinating. Thanks for indulging me.

@paulwgraham: no problem man, interesting stuff, some of the mexican regulations are really dumb, the only thing from the trump presidency that i was looking forward to was the whole nafta renegotiations (for whatever selfish reasons he had) to hopefully get some sort of EU like system in imports and exports between canada, us and mexico. Its also a pain in the butt when some hardware component fails and you have to ship it to the US for repairs/replacement, I paid almost 80 bucks for a malfunctioning ssd. I guess at the end of the day the PO box is probably the way to go atm.

@smellylettuce: I reached out cus I got the 2022 batch. They said it still drip feeds week to week no matter when you get it.

@camosid: Ah interesting. I kind of like the concept. Always something new on the horizon. Though you'll be missing out on the collective discovery like in your case with later hardware shipments which kinda sucks. Thanks for the info!

I'm surprised that they are shipping to some EU countries but not all of them. Will have to wait and see if they add my country to the list, not that they would be shipping this year anyway. On the plus side it looks like you can pay in USD instead of the standard 1 USD = 1 EUR conversion other consoles use.

@apewins: that’s neat. Wish Apple was the same. At some point in the last couple of years they said “Fuck it” and started charging the same amount in pounds as they do in dollars.