Interestingly, Panic has chose to work with a factory in Sungai Petani to manufacture Playdate. In a recent update regarding the current status of Playdate, the company has provided a brief look inside the factory:
— Playdate (@playdate) December 20, 2019 According to the company, the factory is currently building several hundred of Playdate Developer Preview units that are meant for developer to test their games on Playdate. However, these units are not meant for normal gamers since they apparently not able to do anything outside of the box alongside the fact that there are no games available for the handheld system at the moment. While these early units might be made for developers, Panic has stated that all Playdate in the future can become a game developer kit. The company will provide further information regarding this very soon but more importantly is that Panic has also confirmed that Playdate in right on track for a release in 2020. (Source: Playdate.)