Playdate has sold 150,000 games in the last year

Last March, Panic launched a curated game shop called Catalog for its Playdate handheld. And one year later, the company says it has sold more than 150,000 games through the store. “We want to let everyone who enjoys games know that there is a vibrant game dev community making hundreds of inventive and thoughtful games for Playdate,” Arisa Sudangnoi, head of Playdate developer relations, said in a statement. The news comes exactly two years after the handheld first launched.

At the beginning of 2024, Panic revealed that it had sold 70,000 Playdate units, and it now says that more than half of those users — 38,000 — have purchased a game through Catalog. For context, the Playdate launched with a “season” of 24 games from notable developers that came as part of the purchase price. Panic says that “about 32,000 of those users who have not bought a game are still working through the games included in Playdate Season One.” Some more numbers: there are currently 181 titles in the store, and so far, sales have grossed just over $544,000 (“after taxes, processing fees, and Panic’s 25% revenue share for distribution on Catalog,” the company says).

Back in February, Greg Maletic, head of special projects at Panic, described the sales numbers for Playdate games as “not enough to certainly make a career out of,” adding that “I think it is a decent amount for a hobby, and that’s how a lot of developers have been looking at this as kind of a fun hobby that has in some cases rekindled excitement for writing games.”

Among the most notable recent Playdate titles is Mars After Midnight from Papers, Please developer Lucas Pope, which launched in March.