You might have seen a back-up smartphone battery that appears to double as a GameBoy clone. Naughty. The Playdate from software house Panic is not one of those, despite first appearances. It is something a little bit more interesting. With a launch price of $179 (£129), it needs to be.
For ‘fun’, Panic is instead seeking to introduce a new open-system gaming platform. Users will be able to sideload their own games and offer them for wider distribution. To do that, a developer kit for Windows, MacOS and Linux is also being released.
The main attraction will be an official release of two new games every month, included in the price, alongside a dozen that are to be bundled on the handheld console at launch.
Panic has said that, by adopting this approach, it wants Playdate to encourage game creation by women, LGBTx and other minorities that are under-represented in the gaming developer community.
In terms of general inclusiveness, the specifications are...