I will say I am pretty impressed by Panic’s genius in what basically amounts to a cash grab.
Ah yes, the ever popular "spend more than half a decade of time and risk loads of your own money on R&D to create and release a tiny quirky hardware device to the world" cash grab.
Anyway, sure this seems expensive on the surface, but as others have said with 24 original and exclusive games included it's actually kind of a deal. Software in general but especially games are already devalued to a depressing degree nowadays. If you don't even consider the hardware at all you're still paying less than $10 per game.
Now, maybe not everyone will like or even want all of those 24 games, and think it sucks you're forced to "buy" them all up front. Then I would say this: The Playdate is not for you. You're not just buying a device that plays games, you're buying the experience of having those games be weekly surprises. That was one of the earliest concepts that drove them to make this in the first place. Panic's Greg Maletic in
an interview with iMore:
"Once we decided that we'd make a device like a 1980s Nintendo Game-N-Watch, we had the bright (or maybe not-so-bright) idea: what if the device magically morphed into a new, surprise game each week? That's where the idea of the Season came from: surprise games, delivered on a schedule."
So yeah, this thing is a whole concept, not just a handheld and some games. Can you buy something cheaper that plays a larger number of games? Yes. I can also buy like 10 cars for the price of a helicopter, but they are not the same thing. I don't WANT 10 cars, I want a freaking helicopter. This thing is about fun, quirkiness, and offering something that nobody else is. I think about how many people laughed off the Switch when it was announced, and now look.
If you want regular ass video games then by all means, there's nothing stopping you. But if you want wacky graphing calculator with a crank games made by some of the most revered developers in the history of gaming then you gotta hop on the Playdate train. And trust me, nobody will blame you for waiting to see how it all plays out before buying one if you're hesitant. But to mock or instantly dismiss this as a failure and paint everyone who likes it as some sort of idiot is downright ignorant and more importantly outs you as a joyless sack of meat.
