30 years ago: Apple's console flop Pippin is released

Contents

It must be included in any article about Apple's biggest failures: the Pippin game console. Like many other Apple products, it is named after an apple variety. A “Multimedia Player” based on a Mac, for playing music, movies, games, and infotainment, cheaper than a PC.

It remains a mystery why Apple announced this project at the end of 1994. Similar multimedia devices like Philips CD-i (1991), Commodore CDTV (1991), and 3DO (1993) had previously failed with the idea of making the living room with its TV the center of digital entertainment. Sure: The proximity to the Mac and the familiar tools make it easy to develop for the system.

Apple Hardware as a Licensing Model

Furthermore, Apple does not want to manufacture and market the console itself, but rather to license it with low risk. The idea is familiar from the 3DO, which is produced by Goldstar and Panasonic, among others. Apple only manages to convince the company Bandai with this. The Japanese toy manufacturer primarily earns its money with action figures from popular anime series like Power Rangers and Gundam. In 1994, it already released a CD-based console for children: Playdia. Now it wants more.

The Mac console is announced for 1995. But only on March 28, 1996, the “Pippin Atmark” appears in Japan in a contemporary light gray color, for the equivalent of 700 US dollars. Atmark: This is how the @ symbol is pronounced in Japan.

The 600 dollar US version “Pippin @World”, this time in black, is also delayed. Originally planned for September 1996, Bandai can only start delivery in December. Many stores do not receive the device until after Christmas, in January 1997.

For Europe, Katz Media, a company founded specifically for this purpose with roots in France, Norway, and Ireland, is found. It wants to offer the console as an OEM version under the name “Katz Media Player 2000”, which will also be black.

The Technology

Pippin is based on the first Power Macs, i.e., computers with the PowerPC processor. In this case, a stripped-down MacOS controls the PowerPC 603 with 66 MHz, an entry-level chip of the second PowerPC generation. What is missing is any graphics acceleration beyond the CPU. This is not a good choice for a multimedia console in the mid-nineties. 6 MB of RAM are installed; the European version has 2 MB more. The data medium is the CD. There is no hard drive; but 128 KB can be stored on internal flash memory. Pippin has plenty of connections: RCA, S-Video, and VGA at the back, as well as connections for mouse and keyboard/graphics tablet combinations. A switch is used to toggle between NTSC and PAL; and since the device can handle different voltages, an import version can be operated in Germany without any problems.

An astonishing amount of accessories is presented, some of which are included as bundles and some of which never make it to market. For example, there is a floppy disk drive as a docking station that plugs into the bottom of the console. To use the online service developed by Bandai, Franky for Japan and Atworld.Net for the USA, a modem is required.

Mostly multimedia programs are offered for Pippin. They are often originally released for the Mac or as hybrid versions for Mac and Windows and are created with the authoring system Macromedia Director. One example is a CD about the Japanese pop singer Chisato Moritaka, with videos and an interview.

Manageable Game Selection

The Mobygames database lists just 21 games. They are mostly adventures and educational games for children; here too, often ports from the Mac. The highlights:

• “Marathon” for the Macintosh is Bungie's answer to “Doom” in 1993. Together with part 2, the first-person shooter is released as a bundle under the name “Super Marathon” exclusively for Pippin – and is thus the only console version of the series for a considerable time. This is surprisingly continued in 2026.
• “Racing Days” is the only racing game. It is also the only multiplayer game – you can compete against each other via serial cable or even modem. That's remarkable for a game console in 1996. Although it is developed by a Japanese studio (the short-lived Kitty Peak), it is only released in the USA.
• “Shockwave Assault” is a rail shooter where you don't move freely, but as if on rails, with video sequences. It is EA's only Pippin game. It is released as “Shock Wave” originally for the 3DO console and is later ported to other platforms along with the add-on.
• “The Journeyman Project” is an adventure by Presto, released in 1993 for Windows and Mac, and praised for its high-resolution graphics. A remake with the subtitle “Pegasus Prime”, which replaces the still images with videos, is later released in Japan for PowerMac, PlayStation, and Pippin. It is also supposed to be released for PlayStation and Saturn in the West, but that doesn't happen – only in 2013/2014 an anniversary edition is released for Windows, Linux, and Mac.
• Also from Presto comes “Gundam 0079: The War for Earth”. The interactive film, sold as a game, is based on the “Gundam” anime universe with its battle robots.
• “Gadget” is an adventure in the style of “Myst”. It was first released in 1993 for the PC-like system “FM Towns” in Japan and was later ported to other systems. The developer is the Japanese studio Synergy. It converts other adventures for Pippin, such as “Yellow Brick Road” based on “The Wizard of Oz” and “Alice – An Interactive Museum” based on “Alice in Wonderland”.
• “Power Rangers Zeo” is a simple fighting game based on the series of the same name. It was developed by Cyberflix, which actually specializes more in adventures: their by far biggest success is “Titanic – Out of the Time", which is released a year before James Cameron's film and sells more than a million copies in its wake.

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The console has a connection for a second controller; and the manual shows a splitter to connect two controllers per socket, meaning a total of four. But no games are known that use multiple controllers.

Too Expensive and Too Late

Even in 1996, hardly anyone knew what to do with Pippin. Unclear target audience, too expensive, too late, too little power, too little software. At a time when the half-price PlayStation with its 3D graphics chip was conquering the world.

Plans for a Pippin 2.0 with DVD and for under $500 remained on paper. Steve Jobs personally ended the project. He returned to Apple with the acquisition of NeXT after eleven years on December 20, 1996, initially as a consultant, and reduced Apple's product range to a handful.

In the end, only 30,000 units of Pippin were sold in Japan and 12,000 units in the USA. For the European version, 500 to 1,000 units are estimated to have been produced (but not necessarily sold). Bandai is left with 50,000 unsold devices and has to write off the fiscal year ending March 31, 1997, with a loss of 214 million dollars. A merger with SEGA is in the air. But unexpected salvation comes from another “console”: In November 1996, Bandai releases the small LCD game “Tamagotchi” – and it sells 40 million times.

For Apple, however, the damage is manageable – the Pippin team is small; Bandai is responsible for production and marketing. And Bandai may have to pay Apple royalties not only for the sold but for the produced devices. What remains is the shame. But Apple has since recovered from that: A decade later, the iPhone appears, which is also a game console in a way. It has since sold more frequently than all consoles in the world combined.

(nie)