PlayJam delays GameStick shipments by two months

PlayJam has delayed shipments of its tiny Android TV console GameStick by two months.

Revealing the news to backers in a Kickstarter update, the Smart TV company claimed that the hardware will now launch in June instead of April due to higher-than-expected demand.

The firm stated that it had only planned to manufacture around 1,000 GameSticks, but production had now run into the tens of thousands. As a result, PlayJam has now moved to “higher end” tooling in both China and Germany, which takes around three months to create.

Shipment is now expected to begin from June 10th, although many of the projects Kickstarter backers may not receive their units till the end of the month.

“Initially we had hoped to deliver GameStick to you at the end of April,” read a statement from the company.

“We now expect to complete mechanical tooling about 4 weeks later at the end of May. Then the units are assembled, tested and assuming there are no issues, packed prior to shipping to each territory. We expect to ship around the 10th June. The volumes are now too large for us to be able to afford to air-freight them, which was our plan, so now we are going to have to use sea freight to deliver them. That’s going to take around 2 weeks.

“Then we have fulfilment in territory – which we estimate will take between 1 and 5 days depending on where you are located. This means we think the likely date of arrival of your hand crafted GameStick will be at the last week of June.”

The delay comes shortly after the news that the console will launch in the UK exclusively at GAME in June.