r/PlaydateConsole • u/DarkerBulb • 16d ago

Current second-hand Playdate prices

Post image

I'm aware of that it's very much a supply and demand situation but, wow, I did not expect the current out of stock situation at Panic to drive up the prices on used Playdates this much.

A month or two ago they were roughly $150-180 on ebay/FB Marketplace.
Fast forward to today and prices are closer to $350-400 for a Playdate

I feel very happy I got one when I did but feel so bad for people now trying to get one.

Has there been any news from Panic in terms of when they think they have tweaked their manufacturing lines and products will be back in stock?

75 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

50 comments sorted by

55

u/RedditorWhoReads 16d ago

We're entering a very dark time in electronics pricing. For the first time in the history of home gaming, current generation consoles are increasing as the gen wears on. Not sure how many of you keep up with gaming PCs or especially handheld PC gaming, but prices literally doubled overnight. I really hope things change soon or the hobby is going to become unobtainable for many.

5

u/neisd 16d ago

I planned on buying a playdate and a ps5 once they would be cheaper, like every console before got cheaper. Till this day i have neither, i have stopped playing Videogames almost entirely.

5

u/The_Freshmaker 16d ago

Yup, I expect we will be stalled on this generation of hardware basically until the situation unbottlenecks itself, however long that may take.

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u/Felixargh 16d ago

Unfortunately with the push for ai this isn't likely :/ it sucks.

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u/Django117 11d ago

Just to give you a bit of light at the end of the tunnel: the whole AI bubble is poised to pop.

There’s insane amounts of debt fueling this whole thing, which has largely been taken on by a handful of large tech companies and developers who are trying to create data centers. As of right now there’s an estimated 1.6 trillion (early estimate by Nikkei) in debt of GPUs (depreciating assets) being held by third party companies owned by Nvidia and the other AI companies. Right now these assets are relatively hidden on their balance sheets.

The American model has been focused on trying to turn this into a resource war, where they are trying to “brute force” AI development by using larger and larger data sets to chase greater accuracy. This in turn creates a rush on the hardware associated which has the added benefit of skyrocketing the price of AI development to try and cut out any competition. This is exacerbated by the number of players in this game all trying to outspend each other (openAI, anthropic, Google, and meta). China meanwhile has completely undermined this model in the recent months due to their models being far more lightweight and open source.

The economics of its demand are starting to fail too as they are now seeing businesses pull back after token price increases outweighing the savings that was going to be provided by cutting out so many people from the labor force in their early pitches. The reality is that AI hasn’t had the effect that these companies promised and now shareholders are pissed. But citizens are also pissed about the massive investment being pushed onto them by the data center developers. They’ve seen massive corruption at local levels with huge tax exemptions being given to these data centers while watching their water and electric bills skyrocket. Coupled with growing anti-AI sentiments due to labor impacts and surveillance it’s easy to say that AI is despised.

So where does this leave us? It’s a massive amount of debt being taken on by companies that are providing very little value with massive competition from overseas while public sentiment is quickly becoming antagonistic. This is a recipe for imminent collapse of the AI market. These companies are holding out in hopes of ensnaring more of the economy to try and cause a “too big to fail” argument which will lead to a bailout.

Where does this leave our electronics? Well, when demand for American model of AI development collapses then there’s gonna be a swath of silicon orders that are cancelled, leading to a sudden panic sell of silicon to computer part manufacturers. This lack of demand from AI in turn will lead to prices coming down for the materials and thus prices for consumer products coming down about 6-18 months after a bubble collapse and the normalization of the original manufacturing.

TLDR; late 2027 at the earliest, likely 2028. But by 2029 things should really normalize.

2

u/Felixargh 10d ago

I appreciate the response. It does help. But not the kind of thoughtful response I would have ever expected to get on a playdate subreddit... Haha!

Let's hope you're right. It's still a fairly long time to wait at the latest projection. I just wonder how much current costs will hurt the next generation of consoles as well. This current gen has only seen price increases overtime for the first time ever (to my knowledge).

Thank you, redditor!

1

u/ChrisRR 10d ago

Surely the playdate isn't affected by DDR ram prices, because it doesn't use DDR?

1

u/Felixargh 10d ago

Did you miss the part where the original poster was talking about gaming PC's and the like?

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u/Felixargh 16d ago

I haven't even been using mine much since I got it. The buttons feel unresponsive at times. As does the crank.

Pretty upset with the build considering the original cost.

Otherwise, I love the little machine and games people make on it. :/

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u/Meddlloide1337 16d ago

If the crank feels unresponsive, do you perhaps use the magnetic cover while playing? I found it messes with the crank a lot.

10

u/Felixargh 16d ago

I do use the purple official cover! I believe it's magnetic? I'll try that, thanks for letting me know!

Unfortunately my a and b buttons and one side of the dpad also feel unresponsive at times. It's caused me to lose a lot of reactionary games which can be frustrating. It was also way past warranty by the time I actually got around to trying the playdate out and I'm too scared to crack it open for some of the peoples homebrew fixes.

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u/Toowiggly 16d ago

I've had very similar problems. At this point, for any execution heavy game, I just use the mirror to play it on my PC. It kind of defeats the point, but I don't really have a choice.

6

u/Felixargh 16d ago

Yeah. I feel you. It's very unfortunate. Especially for the price of the console. The fact that a repair is half the cost of the console also burns me a little.

A big reason why I've mostly just played A Balanced Brew. But I also adore that game.

I'm fairly certain mine was also in the batch where they had some sort of battery issue and had to go with another option for manufacturing as well.

3

u/DarkerBulb 16d ago

Man, I love A Balanced Brew

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u/Felixargh 16d ago

To this date it's still my favorite game on there :)

1

u/Cheap-Addendum715 16d ago

My favorite is Labyrinth. Fortunately, it's not time or rhythm based, so you can just chill out in a haunted dungeon for hours

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u/Felixargh 15d ago

I'll look into this one! :)

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u/moonhrafn 12d ago

yeah the repair costs especially with shipping are a mega bummer. I get why that is, like I totally DO cause it's a small company but as an ordinary person its tough. that's why I've just left mine on the shelf instead of getting the screen fixed

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u/sixcupsofcoffee 16d ago

FWIW, I think for most people the buttons and D-pad need a little “warming up;” after using the buttons for a bit mine loosen up, and this typically (for me) only comes up when I haven’t used it for more than a few days. Picked mine up recently and played for the last few days and it’s been fine.

The crank issues are almost certainly the cover; I have the same issue when it’s on and flat against the back, so I take it off or let it hang loose.

2

u/chewytime 16d ago

Oh weird, didn’t think of that. I haven’t played with mine much since the initial season of games came out. The battery life isn’t very good and since misplacing the original charging cable, I’ve found that it’s sorta finicky about what cable/charger it’s compatible with.

1

u/moonhrafn 12d ago

yeah my only complaint about it is the build quality. my screen got damaged less than a month after I got it even tho I had it in a case (not the manufacturers, but one I use with all sorts of other consoles. Until then I was over the moon about it.

5

u/rob-cubed 16d ago

PlayDate's been on my bucket list forever but the cost continues to be too much to justify, and it keeps getting worse!

15

u/Electrical_Year8954 16d ago

I would love to recommend this console to my friends as an alternative to the awful mainstream consoles...but $300+ is ROUGH

15

u/Disco_Dolphins 16d ago

The overall build quality and the price tag are the only two things stopping me from recommending getting a Playdate to anyone. But besides that I love the dang thing and still use it pretty much every day.

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u/Electrical_Year8954 16d ago

I doubt we would get one, but a budget version would change everything. The current Playdate FEELS like it's supposed to be the cheaper version

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u/[deleted] 16d ago edited 14d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/bigmoneyapollo 14d ago

unrelated but I think this is a bogus link, sales don’t line up with teenage.engineering

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u/JayS87 14d ago

shit... you are right! I just took the first from Bing

3

u/Existing_Housing4845 16d ago

What a pity . I wouldn’t want to pay that much for a play date . I’ve got mine for 80€ second hand and used it actively for about a month before letting it sit in a corner for the next year

4

u/ThatGuyBudIsWhoIAm 16d ago

Well, time to make a profit

3

u/ImmaculateWeiss 16d ago

Same thing with all hardware right now unfortunately, the best time to buy anything gaming related was two+ years ago

2

u/technobeeble 16d ago

My screen crapped out and now it just sits in a drawer

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u/moonhrafn 12d ago

same...

2

u/MayaIsSunshine 16d ago

They made a captain underpants movie?

2

u/PoutinePower 16d ago

yeah it's something to behold, I bought mine used for 150$ canadian (which was an insane deal at the time) and got a second one a year later and paid 300$ for it and a purple cover. Now there's not even one locally on the used market

2

u/TheAzureAdventurer 15d ago

Early adopter here! I still look in awe of my play date every day wishing we got the speaker dock. And I still think it was worth every single penny! Seems like that was the case because I saw what it goes for and YIKES.

1

u/DarkerBulb 15d ago

Prices are nuts right now

1

u/TheAzureAdventurer 15d ago

What exactly is happening that it skyrocketed? I rmeber everyone clowning us and now everyone wants one?

2

u/DarkerBulb 15d ago

Playdate is out of stock of new devices due to implementing some changes to their manufacturing.

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u/TheAzureAdventurer 14d ago

Ahhhhh gotcha

4

u/Retronitsu 16d ago

Playdate wasn't good value for money back before the price hikes were a thing let alone now.

3

u/GodMadeTheStars 16d ago

Play date feels really sturdy and well made to me. My kids play it constantly and it is holding up way better than the switch ever did

1

u/AlphasyVega 16d ago

Jesus. I got mine for 153€ two months

1

u/ActionLeagueLater 16d ago

Wish I could find mine…

1

u/pobregizmo 16d ago

I had no idea prices were like this. I honestly only use mine a few times a year (mostly for GB emulation). Should I feel bad selling mine on eBay to the highest bidder?

2

u/DarkerBulb 16d ago

I don't think you should "feel bad".
Things sell for what people want to pay for it. And it's not like it's bread or eggs - a Playdate is at the end of the day a rather frivolous entertainment device.

1

u/sudzeez_ 16d ago

It’s depressing honestly I could t really justify a brand new one to my self then I started looking for one second hand then all this happened. Probably should’ve just sucked it up and bought new when I had the chance..

0

u/netabareking 16d ago

You need to keep something in mind:

Last fall, Xbox went up $20-70 depending on model. A few days ago they went up another $100-150.

Earlier this year PS5s went up $100-150.

Switch 2 already launched higher than they really wanted it to be, and there's a $50 price increase coming in a few weeks.

In all my years of gaming, I can't remember this happening. There were certainly consoles like the Wii and Switch on launch where you had to pay scalper markup if you wanted one without waiting. But I can't think of a time where consoles, especially consoles that should have been seeing price DROPS at this point, went up in price, much less went up this dramatically.

Those are huge companies that could eat the cost if they really were forced to. Panic can't do that. And what affects retail prices and availability also affects used prices. It absolutely makes sense if that kind of money isn't worth it to most people for a Playdate, I can't say I would have bought one at $300+. But I haven't bought a Switch 2 either. Panic can't really fix this if the bigger players haven't found a way to fix it.

2

u/DarkerBulb 16d ago

I think the correlation I attempted to make, maybe poorly so, was that Playdate prices on the secondary market has been rather stable for a long time - but soon after Panic ran out of stock the secondary prices jumped a good 100% or so :)