The Playdate: Another Celebration of the Age of Proprietary Gaming

playdate-panic-handheld-game-console

The Playdate — a specialty handheld system which software and game publisher Panic just announced, looks pretty neat I guess. I’m not really sure how ambitious the company is with this thing, but looking at it also makes me think about all the other retro-style specialty hardware out there and wonder if I’m nostalgic for that old hardware at all.

In September I did a post about why I personally don’t want any of these little retro consoles and would rather just buy the games they contain on hardware I already own. When I look at the Playdate I just have the question, what about its exclusive games — from developers like Keita Takahashi (Katamari) and Bennett Foddy (Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy), makes it impossible for me to just play them on my PC or my Nintendo Switch?

I get it: a lot of 80’s and 90’s computer hardware looked cool and some of us want to get that feeling back today. I see that same spirit in the Playdate as well as some other projects — I think someone else out there has been trying to bring out a new cartridge-based console. And we also want to get back to the simplicity that newer consoles have lost. We miss being able to just slam in a cartridge and start playing the game. Playdate sounds like it will have a simple digital distribution system probably based on very light downloads and just little overall between users and the actual games.

One thing I’m not nostalgic about though is the old paradigm of having to own all those different boxes in order to have access to all the games exclusive to each one. I didn’t think it was a good state of affairs in the 90’s and I don’t think it’s a good state of affairs now. I just care about the games, not what they run on.

I do appreciate however that the Playdate is small enough to fit in a shirt pocket, as there really doesn’t exist a dedicated handheld with that level of portability in today’s market. I’m sure the games Takahashi, Foddy, and the others are making for it will be good, but when I look at that little thing my mind keeps going straight to NES and Game Boy emulation, which I understand wouldn’t really be feasible because of the Playdate screen’s color range. I hope that beyond the 12 games Panic plans to release, it makes the Playdate open-source, or that perhaps someone will hack it for some homebrew development. I like the idea of devices that small and ergonomic hosting a large variety of software, even if it might infringe on the perceived simplicity of the platform.

The crank seems like it’s going to be its own input device which seems like a very Nintendo thing to do. Panic already confirms some games will use it and some won’t ,and that’s fine.

Really the whole thing is fine. I’m not expecting this to be a mass-market device at all, but really just a cute distraction for a niche of people who are into the novelty. It kinda looks like a more advanced 21st century version of a handheld electronic game. If you’re part of that market, fine.

The whole thing seems like a celebration of a time when video games and game consoles were seen as cool little toys built specifically to run proprietary software. In many ways it was a simpler time and a better time. I just don’t like how the nostalgia for that time seems to be actively making some games harder to access for people who want the convenience of today’s gaming world.

BULLETS:

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