Why the Original Playdate Laptop Could Succeed Where Ouya Failed

Remember microconsoles? Years before "the era of streaming" which, according to Sony, is upon us, there was a period when conventional wisdom was that traditional consoles were dead and that cheap microconsoles were the wave of the world. 39; future.

At that time, companies like Ouya and well-established brands such as Sony, Nvidia, Mad Catz, Apple, Amazon and others have made a breakthrough in the micro-console gaming market in a form or form. other.

Their bet was that there was an audience that wanted to play games on television but did not want to spend hundreds of dollars on a full-fledged console that was exaggerated for the big avalanche of independent games. But then, tens of millions of people bought the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One (and later, the Nintendo Switch) and the bottom fell largely to the microconsole market (although no one has it told Atari).

Yesterday marked a bit of an inflection point in the short and sordid story of the microconsole. First, Ouya's owner, Razer, announced that he will finally close the online gaming platform of the system on June 25th. The Ouya brand, as well as the follow-up of Razer's "Forge TV", are equivalent to support for the company's life since 2015, but this closure marks the end of a nearly seven-year-old saga that debuted with unprecedented enthusiasm for crowdfunding for the bold idea of ​​Ouya microconsole.

Then, last night, a totally new and unexpected direction for microconsoles seemed to come out of nowhere. Playdate's hand-cranked black-and-white portable console, aiming for a launch for 2020 at $ 149, will certainly not create much competition for the types of gaming experiences you can get on a console at full share, a PC game end, or even your smartphone. And that's why it could succeed where other microconsoles have failed.

And now for something completely different

Panic, the company behind Playdate, is not really known as gaming material or material of any kind. In two decades, the company has made a name for itself by writing productivity software for Mac and iOS and by funding independent games such as Fire picket and the next Untitled goose game (This is the official name of the game, not the basis of a routine Abbot and Costello).

But as the company said in a Playdate FAQ, "After 20 years of software development, we wanted to develop our skills, push ourselves out of our comfort zone and embark on an adventure." We love creating things, and it was time for us to level up. "

So, why not spend four years developing a black and white handheld computer with a crank controller, is not it?

Oh yes, in addition to two front panel buttons and a directional pad, the Playdate features a foldable crank controller on the side that Panic hopes we'll "think about … like an analog stick – but we can turn to infinity. "Panic's hardware design partners at Teenage Engineering write that the pedalboard is an attempt to" break people with psychosis to the touch, "a new legitimate medical term that we're going to definitely use in our daily conversations. And no, the crank does not power the device – there is a rechargeable battery for this.

To launch the game library of this strange little system, Panic works with independent developers such as Keita Takahashi (Katamari Damacy), Bennett Foddy (QWOP), Shaun Inman (Retro game crunch) and Zach Gage (Ridiculous fishing). They will provide a "season" of 12 games that will be included with every Playdate console purchase, delivered via Wi-Fi once a week, after the launch. The first game revealed, Takahashi Crankin's Time Travel Adventure, looks a bit like a Game Boy remake plait mixed with Takahashi's own Noby Noby Boy.

Everything works on a Game Boy-esque LCD screen, 2.7 inches, 400 × 240 resolution and low power consumption that says Panic "has no grid lines, no blur, [and] extremely clear and clean (…), it's really an "upscale" black and white screen. "Not upscale enough to be backlit, so be prepared to turn off a reading lamp to play at night.

Keep your ambitions in check

All these details should show that Playdate explicitly aims for "a distinctly different experience from what you get from your phone or TV". And that's the key here.

Microconsoles like Ouya have always been marketed, to some extent, as less expensive alternatives to buying a truly "powerhouse" console for your TV. The implicit argument was that a relatively inexpensive "low-end" system-on-chip would be enough to power the vast majority of cool independent games flooding the market.

It turns out that the vast majority of the public buying consoles was willing to spend a few hundred dollars more for a "real" console that can play these independent games. and the big budget and successful exclusives that have always led to hardware sales. As has been discussed for years, microconsoles seemed to be trying to solve a problem that the console market did not really have.

But Playdate "does not try to compete with the other devices we already play with and love," as the FAQ says. "It has been designed to be complementary (…) to create a whiff of fun between moments spent with your phone and your home console." Instead of trying to provide an ambitious "solution" to a gaming market that's not out of order, Playdate is trying to add a little something that can happily fill game holes whose we did not even know the existence.

This refreshing lack of ambition is evident when you look into the Playdate FAQ. There is no discussion about the specifications beyond the "real beefy". There is no mention of achievements, rankings, online dating, cloud backups or other expensive online ephemera that characterize a "serious" gaming platform these days. Although the Wi-Fi multiplayer mode is possible, the software "will focus on the game in single player mode". Even plans for a basic gaming store offering more than the 12 included titles remain seemingly unresolved ("It all depends on the interest and sales, but we hope!", States the FAQ)

There will never be any question of whether Skyrim or Red Dead Redemption will be brought to Playdate (but have fun playing Portal on Nividia's Shield TV). Nobody will say that Playdate "delete[s] as many reserves and obstacles as possible … to give the best value proposition, "said Julie Uhrman, founder of Ouya, about her microconsole at Ars in 2012. There will never be a leader who will say that "basically, the specifications we have chosen allow us to provide maximum experience at a very reasonable price," said Tiffany Spencer about Ouya's 2012.

It's the hipster microbrewe of the world of consoles, mixing strange game flavors and unique controller ingredients that the Sony / Budweiser and Nintendo / Millers of the world can not. Playdate aims to become the console you buy the most as a statement about your refined and eclectic tastes, and less like a workaholic that will be a central part of your playing life. Scrunchies indie fashionable as Celestial or In the breach seems to suit Playdate, but really experimental players play with crank on a low resolution black and white screen.

"We think, hopefully, that there are enough people in the world for whom the spirit and joy of this device will resonate clearly and loudly," says Panic about Playdate.

We hope so too. But by mastering the ambitions and expectations of the device, this original device has already succeeded in a way that has failed many other micro-solutions. The age of the micro-console competitor as a cheap console is over. The era of micro-experience-shop-experience-microconsole is upon us. It's time