I get that some people have a very very very strong anti-elitist bent and “apple dev shop” is going to make it flare up but how much less would you have them charge for this thing and still pay the creators
can’t wait to be cranking this thing uncomfortably at night while leaning close to a car window so that the light from the street lamps passing by let me see the screen for a couple seconds
8 Likes
The nirvana of 90s kid nostalgia is HERE
gotta hold your iphone flashlight up to it
6 Likes
Considering how little it has to offer intrinsically, knock $100 off the price and we can negotiate from there.
I’m gonna play this thing wearing a headlamp, merrily cranking away
3 Likes
In the past few months we’ve hit the point where I’ll see a Switch for every 15 people on a Seattle bus
of course, as a creature of shame, I’ll only pull mine out if nobody is sitting behind me to screenpeek my perversions
Whooooa. I did see one dude waiting for a bus by my house the other day playing a Switch on a bench and I noticed it cause it was the first time I’ve seen one out in the wild.
I’m in Baltimore, of course, and I’m sure there’s something in the differences between Seattle and Baltimore that explains this discrepancy somewhat.
Meanwhile, while we’re in the vicinity, I’m surprised someone hasn’t tried turning the Pico-8 “fantasy console” into a real console yet.
There was the PocketCHIP, which didn’t turn out so hot apparently.
I had missed that, I guess!
That looks kind of cool! Though I’d be more interested in one that exports a video signal, because that’s the kind of dork I am. (Even though I’m also tempted to admit that I find PICO-8 mildly offputtingly twee sometimes?)
oh yeah I actually have one of those!
the keyboard is borderline unusable which basically makes the whole thing unusable
The thing about Seattle is that it’s terrifyingly white, and buses don’t have the stigma they have in a lot of east coast cities (like NYC’s odd subway/bus split). So mass transit commuters skew towards tech workers and the like, which of course would select for people willing to pull out a game console on the bus.
I’ve watched a middle-aged lady pull out her original DS every day for the past two years and play some turn-based strategy RPG.
3 Likes
black and white is fine, but $149 without a backlight isn’t. someone on twitter pointed out that traditionally a non-backlit black and white screen was done to keep costs (and sale prices) low, while this is a machine seemingly designed to purposely exclude poor people for no reason
i’d buy this though. maybe shaped like a gba sp would be nicer though. i love a hinged handheld
3 Likes
I keep seeing takes like this and while I get where they’re coming from, I’m sure the people who are making this are well aware of the limited appeal the thing has and have priced it at where they can expect decent margins considering development and production costs?
2 Likes
i’m waffling about this
on the one hand I really enjoy the image they’re putting forth of how games are played
on the other hand nothing about the specifics of this thing really instills any confidence in me that they’ll be able to do it in a way that matters? it’s positioning itself as a new way to play games but also putting itself in the boutique space
so like, even if it’s a cool new way to play games not enough people are going to experience it to really change anything, even as it’s their stated intention
1 Like
I hear you, but also I guess this is something I’m okay with? And I think maybe their intention isn’t actually to “change anything” so much as it is to create a somewhat unique twist on familiar forms, without worrying about changing the way videogames are played and distributed forever?
Not everything has to disrupt things. Maybe disrupting things isn’t even all that good all that often.
3 Likes
I mean Cabel has pretty much said this is just a fun project they’re doing to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Panic so I don’t think their intention is to shake up the industry
4 Likes
i’m probably conflating my desire to see things changed with what they actually want to do
I like how this brings physicality to videogames without threatening to be a giant piece of cardboard that will haunt your cupboards like LABO
4 Likes
Sold!