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Comment by justfor1comment | Hacker News Reader

Isn't $150 expensive? Or may be I am just too poor, to throw money at anyone who asks for it.

It's expensive but not nearly as expensive as I would expect a Teenage Engineering product to be. For example, their most famous product, the OP-1 (a small digital synth with a small LCD screen) is $1300.

To be fair, they also sell things like this for $59: https://teenage.engineering/store#po-20

That's the same price as a Nintendo 2DS, which is about as cheap as mobile gaming comes. So I mean, you might have opinions about how good a value it is, but it is not a very high price point for its market.

Used 2DSes or 3DSes are ubiquitous and around $110 or so.

But $20-40 for each game.

A $40 game provides 20-100 hours of high quality gameplay, which I think is a good value.

Playdate is not in the same market as the 2DS, or really anywhere near it. It's not trying to compete on any of the games-industry metrics, nor could it.

It's like comparing the latest Avengers movie with a niche YouTube show. You can compare the price of a movie ticket with a Patreon subscription, but what are you even comparing?

No, it doesn't. It only might. You or your kids might play it for 10 minutes and never touch it again.

How many people on HN have $100s spent on Steam games they haven't even installed once and probably never will? Or games they finally played but didn't like, yet too much time elapsed for a refund?

You could make the same argument about anything. No product is worth the money it costs if you never put it to use.

That was my impression. If I’m paying $150 anyway I might as well buy a DS.

Still, I guess there is a niche for this. It just isn’t me.

> I guess there is a niche for this

Nerds with disposable income who will play with it for a few hours, after which it’ll take dust on a shelf.

For $150 you get the console and 12 games. That's not too bad.

Based on the technical specs $150, even with 12 games seems like price gouging. It's not too far off the Adafruit PyBadge someone else mentioned in another comment only that comes with a color LCD and more buttons for only $35 ($25 if you get the trimmed down version). Sure it doesn't come with a fancy case and it's missing an analog crank (really?), but there's literally hundreds of free games you could get for it that I'm willing to bet are as much fun or more than every single one of those 12 free games that Playdate will include.

Sorry, this looks like a overpriced gimmick. The digital equivalent of a pet rock, or a more modern (and far more expensive) take on a tomagotchi.

Why are you willing to bet that "hundreds of free games" made by internet randos for a cheap gizmo are more fun than every single one of the 12 games made by experienced game developers?

It would entirely depend on the quality of the games, wouldn't it?

I compare it more to a subscription to Kindle Unlimited or Netflix. With the difference that once I played them all, I can even sell all the games and the device.

I'm prepared to pay 12$ for a good book. Then pointing to free books as an argument that said book is not worth 12$ is not really applicable. I am not just paying for some book, I am paying for a specific book. Like, say, there is a new book out by Neil Gaiman. I will buy that unseen, even if you tell me that I could get a free book by Somebody INeverHeardOf instead.

In the case here, I loved Firewatch and I am willing to give Panic the benefit of the doubt.

If you are looking at technical specs and a budget system, it's not for you and that's okay.

This thing looks beautiful and that by itself is worth a premium price to a lot of people. I bet it's going to sell out instantly.

It'll probably be worth a lot as a collectible in the future.

Oh, I have some 1st gen Pebbles to sell you then :)).

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