Most people know Apple as one of the largest hardware companies in the world, well known for their smartphone and notebook products. But they’ve also tried their hand at consoles in the past.
In the spring of 2022, rumors circulated in the gaming industry about a new product from the smartphone giant Apple (via Gamerant). An internal source has allegedly revealed that Apple is considering the possibility of its own console.
Since the original reports, nothing has moved at the front and whether Apple will actually have its own console is anyone’s guess. But it wouldn’t be their first experience in the console market. They did that back in 1996 with Apple Pippin.
Pippin – Joint product of Apple and Bandai
How did that happen? The idea of launching Apple’s own console came up around 1994 and originally came from Bandai. The CEO of Namco Bandai’s subsidiary approached Apple with a proposal to jointly produce their own console.
During the 1990s, up to 6 new consoles were released each year by various companies. The industry was a lot more diverse back then than it was around 2005, after Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft established themselves as the undisputed market leaders. Accordingly, Apple decided to take the idea and implement it.
This was Apple Pippin: The original design was based on the Macintosh Classic II, a personal computer from Apple released in October 1991. The console had the massive resolution of 640×480 and ran on the Macintosh system software.
While Apple developed Pippin’s actual hardware, partner Bandai provided the casing. The goal was to develop a more compact and cheaper version of the PC that could play games and other CD-based multimedia products, but was also Internet-enabled.
Although Bandai was also responsible for sales and marketing, the console still got its name from Apple. In the usual company manner, the console was named after a variety of apple, the Newton Pepping (Newtown Pippin), which, by the way, is a relative of the Macintosh apple.
Pippin celebrated its launch in March 1996 in Japan and later in June in the USA. It cost 64,800 yen, which would be around €465 today.
There were these games: The list of published games for Pippin is actually not that short. It includes over 100 titles, some of which are real “games” in the classic sense, but some fall into the “edutainment” category.
However, the majority of the games for Pippin appeared in Japan. In the US there were only 20 releases. Many of the games were also based on Bandai brands such as Dragon Ball, Gundam, Power Rangers and Ultraman, for which the company released numerous action figures back then.
These include, for example:
The Fall of Pippin
This is how it went: Bandai CEO at the time, Makoto Yamashita, estimated that around 200,000 units of Pippin would be sold in Japan within a year. When launched in the US, an additional 300,000 units were expected in the first year of life at a price of $599 (including inflation, it would be around $1,131 today).
Bandai spent over $93 million ($175,633,671 today) on marketing, but it didn’t help. The joint console from Apple and Bandai flopped hard, selling just 42,000 units worldwide.
Pippin hadn’t been able to hold his own against the newly released PlayStation, which had been raging on the console market since 1994. In addition, the Nintendo 64 appeared on June 23, 1996, which also took console players by storm.
Not only Pippin fell victim to the two giants, but also various other consoles that had appeared in the period, such as Playdia by Bandai and Toshiba or Casio Loopy by Casio.
The lousy sales figures ultimately led to the Pippin being discontinued in December 1997, less than 2 years after its release, and meanwhile almost forgotten.
What do you think of the failed console from Apple and Bandai? Did you know about her or have you never heard of her before? Tell us in your comments.
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