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0:00
[Music]
0:01
Uh the our review section this week uh
0:04
we are going to review a handheld video
0:07
game console and and uh Griffin, please
0:09
walk us through it.
0:09
Sure. I'm going to switch over to camera
0:13
2 here.
0:13
Oh, your desk is quite rustic, Griffin.
0:17
Oh, yes. I built it. Uh this this is a I
0:19
guess I'll briefly start with a review
0:21
of the desk. This is a
0:25
This is a This is a six foot wide by two
0:27
foot deep uh inch thick pine board. I
0:30
bought three of them from Menard's and
0:32
then just you know basic 4x4 legs on
0:36
each corner. So I've got uh 36 square
0:38
feet of desk in total because I made I
0:40
built three of them simultaneously. It
0:42
wraps all the way across the back end of
0:45
my room and also another table behind me
0:47
on camera. But we have a very exciting
0:51
handheld video game console to review
0:54
today. The one that everybody is talking
0:55
about.
0:57
A purple square.
0:59
What?
1:02
I was totally expecting a Switch 2.
1:05
Oh, I mean, yeah, I bought one of those
1:06
last week. But this is the Playdate by
1:10
Panic.
1:11
Oh, wow.
1:12
Okay. So, if you're not familiar, this
1:14
is a uh tiny little handheld console.
1:18
It's bright yellow. Uh it has a sort of
1:21
magnetic case that you can put on top of
1:23
it. Very Apple-like.
1:25
It has a 2.7 in monochrome LCD display
1:30
at 400 by 240. you know, it kind of has
1:34
like a mini Game Boyish look to it, but
1:37
that's where the similarities end
1:38
because inside you have a modern 64-bit
1:41
processor, 4 GB of flash storage, 16
1:44
megabytes of RAM, built-in Wi-Fi, um,
1:48
excellent build quality as a little size
1:50
comparison.
1:51
Here it is next to an original Nintendo
1:53
DS, and you can just see how much
1:54
smaller it is. You know, it's it's about
1:57
a fraction of the size, but the uh
1:59
controls on it are really ideally sized
2:01
for your hands. the the D-pad is nice.
2:04
The buttons are just perfectly spaced
2:06
enough for you to be able to like, you
2:07
know, roll your thumb between A and B.
2:09
Uh and the kicker is that you don't just
2:12
have the D-pad and two buttons. You also
2:14
have an analog crank.
2:17
[Laughter]
2:19
What is that for?
2:20
It flips out and then it spins around.
2:22
So,
2:22
is that for like powering it up before
2:24
you uh
2:26
into a game?
2:27
It charges by USBC. But this this is a
2:29
an extra device that you can use that um
2:32
or an extra control so you can have both
2:34
analog and digital controls. Like the
2:37
original Atari 2600 struggled with this
2:39
because you would have, you know, there
2:40
was the the controller that had like
2:42
the, you know, joystick on the top and
2:44
the analog one that had the dial that
2:46
you can spin, but this has both of them
2:48
built in. So you can uh play a bunch of
2:50
different fun kinds of games on it. And
2:52
of course, when you power it on, you can
2:54
use the crank to flip through the user
2:56
interface, scroll through all your games
2:58
really quick.
2:59
Yeah.
3:00
This is designed by Teenage Engineering,
3:02
isn't it? Am I right?
3:03
I believe so. Yeah.
3:04
Yeah. Who?
3:05
So,
3:05
and Panic Panic, of course, is like
3:07
they're out of Oregon, I think. Um, and
3:09
they were famous for uh Transmit. I'm a
3:12
software company.
3:12
Yeah. Yeah. And they also make Kod,
3:14
which is another IDE. But you also
3:16
notice when you turn it on, although
3:18
this is a black and white LCD display, I
3:21
mean, this is much brighter than a Game
3:23
Boy. It's not back lit, but it's just so
3:25
much more reflective. The pixels are so
3:27
tiny. Like, it's it's very high
3:28
resolution, very smooth, very easy to
3:30
see. I've I've never had problems like
3:32
seeing it in ordinary indoor lighting.
3:36
The frame rate looks great, but the it
3:37
does look a little bit dim to me.
3:40
Okay. Yeah, I might be able to bring an
3:42
extra light down here.
3:43
Okay. Yeah, you know that's that is a
3:45
bit clear.
3:45
You got built-in speakers but are that
3:47
are quite loud.
3:48
But how long have you had it? Do you do
3:50
you because this to me is like totally
3:52
the kind of thing that I would buy and I
3:53
would play with it and think it was
3:55
really cool and then I would put it on a
3:56
shelf and never touch it again.
3:58
Is it is how much like staying power
4:00
does it have in terms of maintaining
4:01
your interest?
4:03
The great thing about it like one of its
4:05
gimmicks is that when you uh get your
4:08
play date and first set it up, you'll
4:10
automatically get what they call like
4:12
season one of games. And I've started
4:14
playing a game here. And you can see
4:15
like the blend of the analog and digital
4:18
controls. Like you have the D-pad, but
4:20
you can also spin around the crank to to
4:22
great effect and combine them that way.
4:25
But uh when you get season one of games,
4:27
what you get are two new games
4:29
automatically downloaded onto your
4:30
Playdate every single week for I think
4:34
like a good two or three months or so
4:36
worth of games. So this is all the
4:38
season one games that you get. they
4:40
automatically download it and then you
4:42
can just like unwrap them so to speak
4:43
and you know have another two new games
4:45
to play for the week. And then they also
4:47
recently launched uh season two of
4:52
another set of I don't know how many
4:54
games it is. I think like 24 games or
4:56
so. And uh season 2 just started a few
5:00
weeks ago. So they're still releasing
5:02
them. And everybody who has a play date
5:04
is like discovering these games
5:05
simultaneously week after week. I think
5:07
they have like a Discord where people
5:08
are talking about them or on social
5:10
media.
5:11
So, it's a lot of fun. The games are
5:13
really great.
5:14
Um, they also have a built-in game store
5:16
where people can submit games and you
5:18
can buy new ones.
5:20
And because it's also so easy to develop
5:23
games for like, you know, Panic, they
5:25
know how to make a good API. Like you
5:26
can, they have all these tools where you
5:28
can make games as well.
5:30
Can you vibe code them?
5:31
Probably.
5:31
I bet you I was just thinking that. I
5:33
bet you could. Yeah.
5:35
Yeah. But there's a lot of open source
5:36
games you can install. Like this one
5:38
isn't really a game, but it's called
5:39
XKPD,
5:41
and it lets you read XKCD web comics
5:45
every single day. So when you know, you
5:47
launch it up, it'll download it. And
5:49
yeah, that's today's XKCD.
5:51
You can you can read the hover text and
5:53
everything and browse through them.
5:55
So what's your favorite game so far on
5:56
it? There's really great uh open source
5:59
Tetris game for it called Playress, but
6:02
I've really enjoyed I really enjoyed
6:05
like the sort of arcade style games like
6:07
the one that I was showing there,
6:08
Whitewater Wipeout, where it's like a
6:10
sort of surfing game. It makes really
6:12
great use of the crank. There's um I
6:14
really like racing games like this one,
6:16
Grand Tour Legends, is a bicycle racing
6:20
game.
6:21
It also uses the crank really well
6:23
because
6:23
I was gonna say, do you have to like
6:24
turn the crank as fast as you can to
6:25
move the
6:26
You do you use it to bite
6:28
and you can also see like,
6:30
you know, because it's a modern console,
6:32
it supports full motion video, you know,
6:34
so long as that video is 400 by 240
6:38
black and white. But
6:39
huh,
6:39
you know, you've got really nice modern
6:41
games on it. Oh, you know.
6:42
Oh, you bunked.
6:43
You bike you bite too fast and you run
6:45
out of stamina. It's a lot of fun.
6:48
More fun than playing games on your
6:49
iPhone. Oh yeah. Yeah. Because the the
6:52
games are much quirkier. You know, you
6:54
you you've got a when you just have like
6:56
an inherently funl looking console with
6:59
a few limitations, you know, you can't
7:01
have color, you only have a few
7:03
different controls, like it inspires
7:04
that creativity, you know.
7:06
Mhm. It looks really fun. Yeah, it looks
7:08
it looks um it looks really interesting.
7:09
How much is it? Uh they recently uh I
7:12
think started manufacturing a new batch
7:14
of them and you can get it for I think
7:15
$230
7:17
uh from the from the website which is at
7:20
play.date is the URL
7:23
which is a cute little
7:24
play.
7:25
Cute little thing. Yep.
7:26
Excellent. All right. Really good show
7:27
and tell there Griffin. I enjoyed that.
Consumer Electronics
Game Systems & Consoles
Computer & Video Games
Science