Panic’s Playdate handheld will be streamer ready when it launches this year

We’re still waiting for a release date for the Playdate, a tiny handheld with a crank made by Untitled Goose Game Panic editor, but just Panic showed new feature for the device on the official Playdate Twitter account: you can plug the Playdate into your computer and mirror its screen.

As Playdate says in its tweet, there are plenty of potential use cases for it, including better accessibility and making it easier to stream your Playdate game. And by pressing the virtual buttons in the Playdate app, they will be sent back to your Playdate device, giving you another way to play your games. (There doesn’t appear to be a virtual crank, but maybe it’s something Panic hasn’t shown yet.)

Here’s a short video of the computer connection in action:

While the Playdate computer app might look a bit small in this video, you’ll be able to make it larger, Panic said in a response. on Twitter. And if you listen to the video carefully, you can also hear some extremely charming sound effects from the Playdate menu, which, according to Panic, is new.

The Playdate was first revealed in 2019, with games in development starting at Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi, Good Sudoku developer Zach Gage, and more. At the time, Panic expected to ship the Playdate in early 2020, but said in October that he planned to release orders in “early 2021”.

Panic also created a Twitter account, @playdateAlerts, which will only tweet when there is “important” news on the Playdate. If you want to know exactly when you can order the device, @playdateAlerts seems like a good account to follow.