Yesterday, AYANEO finally opened pre-orders for the KONKR Pocket Block, after initially revealing the handheld almost six months ago. Naturally, much of the community scrambled to jump on the pre-order train, hopefully aiming to avoid the same issues that have plagued the KONKR Pocket Advance’s launch.
AYANEO sent out an email this morning to subscribers announcing the launch, pointing out that “early bird pre-orders are now open!” However, if you scroll down just a bit, there’s a surprise disclaimer about the Pocket Block that says:
⚠️ Limited Production Due to RAM Shortage
Due to the current RAM shortage, our production quantity for Pocket BLOCK is very limited.
This means we won’t have unlimited stock available during the early bird period.
If you’ve been waiting for an affordable vertical retro handheld, we hope you won’t miss this one!
What makes this frustrating is that there is no mention of this anywhere on the product page or on the store listings for the Pocket Block. It’s entirely possible that Arthur mentioned the shortage during yesterday’s livestream, but if you’re like me and couldn’t waste hours watching a livestream, you would have no idea about the shortage.
Even now, when looking at the two different online storefronts and the official product page, there is no mention anywhere about potential delays or stock levels. All that you’ll see is “Shipping start: The end of October.”
So while I give AYANEO a “golf clap” for at least making it known in some capacity, it’s really just another example of the company failing to provide the full transparency it promised back in January. Considering recent events in the space, maybe some day we’ll again be able to enjoy the launch of a new retro handheld without worrying about the air being sucked out of the room shortly thereafter.
