With almost laughably low power, a monochrome screen, and unique controls, niche-micro console Playdate shouldn't make any sense in a world of modern gaming. Yet, it's near impossible not to love it. When video game developer and publisher Panic launched its own console, Playdate, back in 2022, it upended just about all conventional wisdom when it came to gaming hardware. Coming just two months after Valve's Steam Deck, the micro-handheld was comparably laughably low in power, brandished a tiny monochrome screen, and took a minimalist approach to physical controls, with only a D-pad, two buttons, and a bizarre crank on offer. Even stranger than the crank was that buyers didn't really know what they'd be playing on it--the earliest games were released in a season pass format, with mystery titles drip-fed to players weekly.

Every video game is a miracle. Long hours, extraordinary technical and artistic requirements and cross-disciplinary collaboration: the very act of making games is difficult, and leaves room for catastrophic errors. It's a wonder any of them make it to release at all. Fulcrum Defender, the new Playdate exclusive from Jay Ma, the co-founder of indie darling Subset Games, is one such miraculous game. Ma began work on Fulcrum Defender following a life-changing Covid infection that has greatly diminished her quality of life and ability to do the thing she loves.

Although Panic paused development on its official Playdate charging dock, an enterprising character artist has swooped in with an open-source kit (via Gizmodo) that transforms the device into an interactive robot pet. PlayBot is Guillaume Loquin's name for the cute add-on, which anyone with the right know-how can build. Loquin, whose day job is as a character artist at Ubisoft, put those skills to use in bringing the device to life. Although it won't do anything crazy like have a chat, pop wheelies or play fetch, Loquin's video below shows it reacting to a wake-up tap, navigating around a corner and getting dizzy after spinning the Playdate's crank. The developer estimates 45 minutes of play per charge.

I hate the Rabbit R1. It's yet another sign that standalone AI gadgets, like the Humane AI Pin, are fundamentally useless devices meant to attract hype and VC funding without benefitting users at all. It's like trying to build a skyscraper on quicksand: Today's AI models are great for parlor tricks, but they're ultimately untrustworthy. How do you create a device around that? The Rabbit R1's big selling point has been its "large action model," or LAM, which can supposedly understand what you say and get things done.

The latest batch of rumors make it pretty clear that a PlayStation 5 Pro is coming this year, but will anyone really care about slightly better 4K graphics? This week, Engadget Senior Editor Jessica Conditt joins Cherlynn and Devindra to chat about the PS5 Pro, as well as her piece on the PlayDate two years after its release. You could say the Playdate is pretty much the opposite of another expensive high-end console. In other news, we discuss the death of Boston Dynamic's hydraulic Atlas robot, and the birth of an all-new digital model. We also chat about the abrupt closure of Possibility Space, an ambitious indie game studio.

The little console that could, Playdate, is having its first sitewide games sale, just like its more-established rivals. Manufacturer Panic is holding the sale to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the online store, which is officially called the Playdate Catalog. If you happen to own a Playdate, you'll find plenty to like here. The cute little synthesizer app Playmaker is on sale for 8, instead of 15, and the action RPG Under the Castle is on sale for 7, which is a discount of 30 percent. Many titles go much lower than this.

Panic is an odd little company. It started out in the late 1990s as an app developer, and in 2016 it pivoted to video game publishing with Firewatch, followed by Untitled Goose Game in 2019. Both of these were breakout indie hits, resulting in significant success for the developers and Panic itself. And then, in 2022, Panic debuted the Playdate, a tiny yellow game console with a crank on the side and a monochromatic display. Playdate was a verified hit and its library is still being updated today.

Playdate shouldn't be able to do the things it does. It's tiny enough to fit in the too-tight front pockets of my skinny jeans, it's lighter than a deck of cards and it has a 1-bit black-and-white screen. It feels like a relic of the '90s, at least until you power it on – Playdate supports smooth, densely pixelated animations, it connects to Wi-Fi and it has a library of exclusive games from top-tier indie developers, all available for free. The small crank attached to its side is the icing on the yellow cake, adding a layer of sweet innovation to every experience on the system. Playdate is my favorite handheld device since the Vita.

More than two years after it was first introduced, Panic's Playdate finally has a preorder date: Thursday, July 29. This charming and bright yellow handheld video game console has a unique crank on its side, and its $179 price includes 24 games developed exclusively for the device. You won't be able to play all 24 games right away, though. Panic will deliver two games every week to the device over Wi-Fi for three months until all 24 are in the system. This encapsulates Season 1's games, and unfortunately, Panic doesn't have much to share on Season 2. "We're waiting to see how many people are interested in the Playdate before determining how games are distributed in the future," a Panic spokesperson wrote in an email.

Despite the pandemic, it's been a pretty great year for video game hardware. Microsoft launched the Xbox Series X, a powerful obelisk packing a 12-teraflop GPU, and the smaller Series S, which can run games natively at 1440p resolution. Sony, meanwhile, released the PlayStation 5 and a cheaper Digital Edition that doesn't come with a disc drive. Both companies are struggling with stock shortages at the moment and a number of user-reported hardware issues. Still, it's a minor miracle that neither Sony nor Microsoft was forced to delay their next-gen launch.