this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2025
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It's cool as a fun project, but I don't see how this could possibly be commercially viable, especially with cartridges. The need for physical distribution alone is already a huge money burden on both the producer and the consumer.
Why does it need to be commercially viable? What's wrong with doing it for love of the game?
It's a product for sale.
There are tons of people who are fine not profiting from their cottage industry projects, but it's not expected that someone wants to lose money on them.
Is this...sarcasm?
no, this is earnest anti-commercialism
I don't think that's a great model for the maker who is clearly trying to SELL things.
Seems that might be a competing idea...
Depends on if they're trying to make a profit or just share their cool stuff
I mean, we have Evercade and it's not failed yet.
Evercade has the advantage of a huge software library to draw from (they have a few native games but the majority are emulated), whereas this will only run it's own software, which puts it at a disadvantage.
Mind you, the Playdate seems to be going well.
I think one of the things playdate has going for them is they are portable.
Good point. With the specs fully open, hopefully we get a portable of this, at some point.
Evercade distributes digitally though.
No they don’t? The games are only sold on physical cartridges (or built-in in some models).
There’s no online store or downloadable games, besides the ‘game of the month’ trial thing they occasionally run.