Playdate Update Adds Proper Storefront, Expands Library - Hardcore Gamer

hardcoregamer.com:

When the cute little yellow square of a handheld micro-console launched the original plan was that the Playdate would see its games released officially in season packs.  The first season was supposed to be twelve games but ballooned to twenty four, and Season 2 is off in the future somewhere.  More games are available at itch.io, and it’s easy enough to add them to the library by side-loading, but it’s still more of a hassle than it needs to be.  As of today, though, the Playdate’s latest update adds a proper storefront named Catalog, where you can buy either directly in the console itself or on the Playdate website.

The Catalog storefront is currently stocked with sixteen games, two of which are free for all users- Reel Steal and Recommendation Dog.  Most of the games are exclusive to the console, but Tapeworm Disco Puzzle has the honor of being the first multi-platform title to land on the system.  So far prices are ranging in whole-dollar amounts from $1.00 to $15.00, which admittedly throws off the premise of A Joke That’s Worth $0.99 so the storefront version has a short extra $0.01 joke added to it to justify the price increase.

There was one extra piece of news wrapped up in today’s announcement, in that the Playdate needs to raise its price to $199 due to an increase in the cost of manufacturing, starting April 7.  All preorders at the current $179 rate will be fulfilled, as will any more preorders between now and the coming rate increase, but after that the new price takes effect.  The good news to go with that, though, is that the preorder period is just about over, and at the moment it’s looking like existing orders will be completely fulfilled in the early part of this year.  Per the video, at the moment that