Gaming hardware has gotten notably pricier, with the PlayStation 5 Pro's price climbing from $700 at its 2024 launch to $900 today, and resellers like GameStop listing it above $1,400. Despite these increases, budget-friendly new consoles remain on the market for players willing to accept lower graphical performance or less conventional designs, though niche devices like the Playdate or Analogue 3D and generic Android gaming handhelds are excluded from consideration.
engadget.com
· 2026-10-25
Teenage Engineering CEO Jesper Kouthoofd announced plans to stop manufacturing synthesizers, including the iconic OP-1, as part of a company reorganization. The firm, known for its innovative audio devices and collaborations, may now prioritize design projects over product manufacturing. The transition could take several years before new initiatives are revealed publicly.
engadget.com
· 2026-10-08
A developer working with collaborator stonerl on a full-speed Game Boy emulator for the Playdate console has published a set of advanced optimization techniques discovered during that project. The tips cover how the Playdate's CPU and small instruction cache behave, including the finding that compiling with -Os instead of -O3 and shrinking core code to fit within the 4KB (or 16KB on Rev B) instruction cache can dramatically boost speed.
devforum.play.date
· 2026-10-02
Panic announced Playdate Season 3 will begin rolling out October 8, delivering eight games over four weeks at a pace of two per week. The $39 bundle is now available for pre-order and includes titles like Soggy Froggy, Gloom Gate, Houm, and Cross Words from various indie developers, revealed during Panic's Playdate Update Showcase.
engadget.com
· 2026-09-09
Panic will livestream its Playdate Update Showcase on Wednesday, September 9 at 12PM ET, just one hour before Apple's iPhone event, revealing Season 3's games and release date. The announcement came only 23 hours ahead of the stream, following the pattern of Season 2, which launched in May 2025 with six weeks of weekly game drops for $39 and sold over 15,000 copies.
engadget.com
· 2026-09-08
Indie publisher Panic is returning the tariff fees it had charged Playdate buyers, after a court ruling deemed the Trump administration's import taxes illegal and ordered refunds to affected companies. Panic said it has now received its own tariff refunds and passed that money back to customers who had paid the added charge as a line item on their orders.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-08-27
Panic, maker of the Playdate handheld, is returning tariff surcharges it had charged customers after the Supreme Court ruled the Trump administration's tariff regime illegal. The company says it added the 19 percent fee as a line item during checkout, stopped charging it on new orders after April 21, and spent months securing its own government refund before building a system to repay affected buyers.
engadget.com
· 2026-08-26
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