Sirence

This article isn’t about the playdate, it’s an article about an emulation software someone wrote that runs on the playdates hardware, so you won’t get a detailed explanation about the playdate as a general device there.

The playdate is a novelty device that anyone can develop Minigames for which use the crank for their gameplay. It is several years old at this point. It’s also very expensive for what it is so if you’re not a fan of just having little novel devices with not much use there is no reason to buy one. It is indeed a tough sell for most people but they have their own demographic of enthusiasts.

The crank is the sole reason this thing exists. If you want an emulation handheld to play Gameboy games without a crank there are countless options out there.

My experience has indeed been flawless but that’s simply because I don’t have many use cases where flaws could appear. I use the Vivaldi and gimp on my t490 and play indie games on my steam deck.