Playdate Handheld Gaming System Sells 20k+ Units In Under 30 Minutes

The first day of public sales of the Panic Playdate is today, and it either went great or was a big giant mess, depending on how you see it. If you were an international customer and couldn't get past the order and shipping screens on the sale website, it probably wasn't a great day for you. If you were one of the first people to order a Playdate device, or you're one of the people that'll profit from the company racking up 20,000+ unit orders in under 20 minutes, you're probably having a fantastic day indeed.

Per the Playdate Twitter account, international customers had some issues with checking out on the sale site this morning. Their "international shipping provider's plug-in" didn't quite stand up to the massive traffic that dropped when orders opened. This resulted in either the process crashing and/or people seeing that the item could not be shipped to their country. Playdate is currently exploring alternative options for the people that fell into this pool.

Panic suggested that they'd start their creation and sales process with 20,000 units that could, potentially, be made and shipped inside the year 2021. Once the first 20,000 were sold, the shipping estimator on the site switched to the year 2022. This happened in short order today when sales opened for the device.

As such, if you saw the message "pre-orders placed now shipping in: 2021" will most likely get said order inside the last few months of the year 2021. If you saw a different message, there's very little chance you'll find a Playdate gaming console at your door before the year 2022.

This game has a very basic premise and a promise for entertainment delivered in a way that's different from any other handheld gaming device before. There's a crank! Take a peek at the timeline below to learn more about the Playdate device as created by the company Panic.