TECH | Apple Enters Console Market

Well, not quite, but Apple has always been ahead of it’s time, and one of the risks of being ahead, is sometimes people just aren’t ready. Then there’s the times when the realisation of the product takes too long and it’s already been surpassed. That’s what happened with Apple’s attempt at making a game console…

The Apple Pippin was a technology for a multimedia title player marketed by Apple Computer in the mid 1990s. It was based around a 66-MHz PowerPC 603e processor, and ran a cut-down version of the Mac OS. The goal was to create an inexpensive computer aimed mostly at playing CD-based multimedia titles, especially games, but also functioning as a network computer. It featured a 4Å~ CD-ROM drive and a video output that could connect to a standard television monitor.

Apple never intended to release its own Pippin. Instead it intended to license the technology to third parties, a model similar to that of the ill-fated 3DO. However the only Pippin licensee to release a product to market was Bandai.

By the time the Bandai Pippin was released (1995 in Japan; 1996 in the United States), the market was already dominated by the Nintendo 64, Sony PlayStation, and Sega Saturn, game machines that were much more powerful than the more general-purpose Pippin. In addition, there was little ready-to-go software for Pippin, the only major publisher being Bandai itself. Costing US$599 on launch, and touted as a cheap computer, the system, in reality, was commonly identified as a video-game console. As such, its price was considered too expensive in comparison to its contemporaries.

Ultimately, Pippin as a technology suffered because it was a late starter in the 3D generation of consoles, and was under-powered as a gaming machine and personal computer. Bandai's version died quickly, only ever having a relatively limited release in the United States and Japan.

In May 2006, the Pippin was voted one of the 25 Worst Tech Products of all Time by PC World Magazine.

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