[porkloin]

It's a combination of nostalgia for a (largely imagined) bygone era of handheld devices, plus the fact that two relatively famous boutique hardware manufacturers/developers are involved (Panic! and Teenage Engineering). People will buy this for $180 for the same reason people still buy TE's OP-1 synthesizer for well over $1k when there are more feature-rich devices available for half the price or less. They're paying for the design, the ecosystem, the aesthetic, and to some extent, as a "lifestyle" purchase.

[quantumsequoia]

If you have nostalgia for old games, why not just buy an old console and some old games?

[incanus77]

Because Panic has forced you to purchase this instead, so you no longer have a choice.

[christoph]

Buy a DE-10 Nano and get MisterFPGA running on it. It’s been great replaying arcade perfect classics like Pac-Man and Space Invaders and also being able to dive into classic SNES and MegaDrive games that I missed out on the first time around. Exploring some other totally missed systems like TurboGrafx which basically never got sold here or only at totally crazy prices has been fantastic as well. It’s got an amazing & friendly community building up around it as well.

[temp_account001]

Thanks for explaining that. I've never heard of any of those things or brands, so I guess I'm not the target market.

[arthurcolle]

You've probably heard of Panic, they made Coda, Nova, Prompt, there's another one that's escaping me right now... and a bunch of other apps. Untitled Goose Game.

[salamandersauce]

They didn't make Untitled Goose Game, they just published it.

[arthurcolle]

Good call - appreciate the correction, forgot about House House

[JKCalhoun]

Transmit is the one I think of.