Juicero is manifesting itself once again - this time in the form of a game console!
Ever since Plainrock124 released his video about destroying the Playdate, I've been waiting for the opportunity to talk about this shitty console - and that opportunity is now.
In short, the Playdate is a console that strives to combine the worst aspects of retro gaming with the worst aspects of modern gaming. I'm not sure exactly who thought doing this was a good idea, but whoever thought of doing so is complete idiot.
Now let's hop over to Playdate's website and tear apart the advertised features of this console one by one:
Right off the bat, the first thing you'll notice is the price: $179! Forcing people to fork out $179 for this thing should be a crime.
The Playdate proudly boasts about the fact that it has a monochrome, non-backlit LCD screen. I have just one question - why? My guess is they're trying to get fans of the original Game Boy to dickride them, but is this really an aspect of retro gaming that we needed to go back to? I'm sure anyone who grew up playing any of the Game Boy generation consoles ranging from the original Game Boy to the Game Boy Advance (before the SP came out) remembers having to buy screen lighting accessories for it - and these lighting accessories, more often than not, were a complete pain in the ass. Perhaps Playdate will start selling these as an excuse to extort even more money out of their customer base!
Apparently this phrase was important enough to the makers of this console to put in bold text: "Playdate looks incredible." Who gives a shit if it 'looks incredible' if the most important fucking function of any game console - the ability to play games - is poorly executed? I'll come back to that particular issue in a little bit. They also talk about the 'silky smooth' crank here - and this is another thing that is apparently so groundbreaking they needed to give it its own section:
Honestly, the crank would actually be really cool if it charged the Playdate's battery, so you could have a neat little console to play during a prolonged power outage or whatnot - except they explicitly say that the crank doesn't charge the battery at all! Instead, they're using it as another input method - yeah, I'm sure that's going to work out really well for most games.
Remember when I said that the Playdate is terrible at playing games? Well, the 'truly unique bit' of this system is why! After you set up the console, you can only play two games out of the box - you have to wait to 'receive' two new games every week until you have accumulated all 24 games after 12 weeks. Does this provide ANY advantage whatsoever? None I can think of, but I have a better idea - how about you ship the fucking console with the games built in, since you already forced people to pay $179 for this piece of shit? How about you give users the option to transfer new games on to the console via USB so they don't have to go through the hurdle of connecting the console to the internet directly? Oh wait, all of that would be too convenient and sensible for a 'modern' game console.
Of course, this wouldn't be a modern game console without it giving its developers the opportunity to datamine their users!
YouTube/Plainrock124
Panic (the company behind this console) claims in their privacy policy that they don't collect any 'personally identifiable' information from Playdate users - but reading through this, I found two conflicting statements IN THE SAME PARAGRAPH!
Some of our products may, by default, collect information about the way you use them. In the case of our software, this data is anonymized before it is sent to us, and cannot be used to personally identify you. Playdate devices may report their device ID, which can be used to identify the registered owner's account, if one exists.
Basically, they claim to not collect any personally identifiable information about their users - while literally saying in the next fucking sentence that the Playdate has a unique device ID that can be used to identify you! Yep, totally a company I want my personal data to be at the mercy of. And as the fraud Mozilla has taught us, the definition what information is 'personally identifiable' can completely change from one company to another.
Back to the console itself, in his video Plainrock124 runs into a roadblock while setting up the Playdate. I couldn't this up better myself, so I'll borrow this quote directly from the video: "When's the last time you have to worry about a GameBoy being fucking iCloud locked?"
YouTube/Plainrock124
And as he also points out in his video, what will happen to the Playdate if the company behind all of this fails? You can kiss your $179 goodbye since the console will become completely fucking useless.
You're better off just buying whatever console it is you grew up with, if you didn't hold on to it - even the original Game Boy (on eBay at least) goes for a hell of a lot less money than what the Playdate costs.
If you want something modern, go for the Arduboy. It's a far superior console in my opinion, due to the fact that it has a backlit monochrome screen, no mandatory WiFi bullshit, and the software is fully open source - you can even code your own games and put them on the console with a USB cable! It also doesn't hurt that the Arduboy costs $120 less than the Playdate!
I suppose there is one advantage the Playdate has over the Arduboy - it's a piece of plastic crap made in Malaysia instead of a piece of plastic crap made in China.
With all this said, I wonder if the Playdate is going to convince anti-consumer Nintendo to rerelease the original Game Boy - now with built in telemtery, mandatory WiFi and other 'modern' bullshit!
