It’s been nearly two months since the end of the campaign and we’ve been hard at work preparing for manufacturing. Thanks to all of you, the Game Bub campaign was incredibly successful, so we’ve got quite a few Game Bubs (more than a thousand!) and Docks (about half of that!) to build.

Unfortunately, it’s looking like we won’t be able to meet our original shipping estimate of February 2026. We’re now targeting shipping by May 2026. Let’s take a look at what we’ve been working on and the cause of the delays.

Display Issues and Changes

When we hit the funding goal at the end of the campaign, we immediately started working with suppliers to get final quotes and lead time guarantees. We had previously finalized the prototypes before the campaign started, so we assumed this would be a straightforward process. However, we soon discovered an issue with our LCD.

First, the color calibration was off. Fairly significantly off. We thought we’d be able to account for this in software, since we were already doing this to match the original Game Boy/Game Boy Advance displays (read our update about color correction for more). However, the display manufacturer was unwilling to work with us to calibrate their displays or even to provide accurate information about their color space and gamut. While 1000+ units is a large number for us, we’re still a small volume customer to the LCD manufacturer, so we don’t get the same amount of support as a larger customer.

Second, upon further inspection, we realized that the display’s pixel pitch (the distance between individual pixels) was slightly different in the horizontal and vertical directions, which meant that the image was slightly stretched horizontally. The effect is subtle enough that we didn’t even notice it at first, but it’s clear in the measurements.

With these two issues, we decided to hunt for a display alternative. We quickly ordered a bunch of samples from different manufacturers, and got to work evaluating each of them.

We eventually found a display that fixed both of these issues: the color reproduction is improved, the pixel pitch is square, and the manufacturer is willing to work with us more closely to provide support and characterize the color reproduction of the displays.

The new display also has better support for variable refresh rates (60 Hz +/- 10%). This is great, since retro video game systems often don’t use an exact standard refresh rate. The Game Boy and Game Boy Advance, for example, refresh at the non-standard 59.7275 Hz. A variable refresh rate lets us match this exactly without extra latency, dropped frames, or duplicated frames. While the previous display also supported variable refresh, the allowed variability was significantly more limited.

Unfortunately, this last minute display change pushed back our timelines, since we had to order samples and essentially bring-up several different displays to find the best one. We also had to build an additional round of prototypes as a result, which takes more time.

Manufacturing the Enclosures

The other reason it’s taking longer than expected is developing the mold for the enclosure. This was partly delayed due to the display change (the new display module has different dimensions which required an enclosure design change).

We’re using injection molding to manufacture the Game Bub enclosures, which allows for higher quality and more precision than 3D printing. However, injection molding is a complicated process that has very specific requirements to be manufacturable.

To help this process along, and to ensure the enclosure can be molded correctly, we’ve hired a mechanical engineer with injection molding experience. It’s taking them a little longer than expected, since they’ve found a few issues with the original design that required internal changes.

We’re trying not to rush this process. Injection molding has such a high setup time (building and testing the molds, making test samples, fine-tuning the process, etc.) that spending an extra week or two to eliminate problems before the mold is created can save a month or more of delays later. Fortunately, the design is just about finalized, so we’ll be able to proceed to mold production soon.

Delays Aren’t All Bad

As a result of these issues, we’re pushing out the expected delivery time to May 2026. We’re trying to be fairly conservative with this estimate to account for expected slowdowns with suppliers around Christmas/New Years (end of December) and Lunar New Year (end of February). But, on the bright side, we have some extra time now to work on the software! While the mechanical engineer is working on the CAD, we’re fixing game bugs and improving system stability.

Also, since we have to build another round of pre-production prototypes, we’re able to make some hardware improvements that we weren’t able to make in time for the campaign. We’ll be sharing more about that in a later update!

Thank you for your continued patience as we hit and overcome bumps along the road to mass production.