The yellow handheld with a crank has sold even better than its creators expected. Panic has revealed it has sold 53,142 Playdate systems in the device’s first year of availability.
Originally, only 20,000 handheld systems were ordered to be built by Panic, with the creator worried they wouldn’t be bought in a good timeframe. But Panic stated in a press release that the initial batch was preordered within 20 minutes after going up for sale on July 29, 2021.
“When we started, we had no idea how big the audience would be for a weird product like this, but we told the factory: Build 20,000. To have now sold more than 53,000 (and counting) is heartening,” said Playdate project lead Greg Maletic.