
Apple Pippin (1996) - org3432
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Pippin
======
OrganicMSG
> Once Bandai licensed Pippin from Apple, Apple made no effort to market the
> Pippin platform. All the marketing was to be done by the licensees. Bandai
> spent US$93 million in marketing alone to sell the Pippin line.[6] As part
> of the licensing agreement, both Bandai and Katz Media were not allowed to
> use the term "computer" when marketing the Pippin systems, so that the
> systems would not be confused with Apple's own Macintosh product line.

That is genuinely mental.

~~~
pmarreck
Steve Jobs made many brilliant decisions but two of the arguably worst
missteps were 1) not ever having been a gamer, he had zero respect for games
and the future growth of the gaming market (possibly also due to the fact that
early Macintosh accusations included epithets such as "it's a fischer-price
toy"), only to have this finally rectified on iOS, and 2) thinking a fruit
diet would cure his pancreatic cancer.

I've been a gamer and Mac user my whole life (our family got the Macintosh
128k when I was 12 in December 1984) and the entire time, Jobs had a love-hate
(but mostly hate) relationship with Mac gaming (I must have been a masochist
for persisting, except for the fact that my DOS brethren had nearly constant
driver/IRQ/DMA/sound issues with their games, while Macs had zero issues,
digitized stereo sound long before PC's did, etc.). Despite that, there was a
time when some really excellent games existed only on Macintosh, until Myst
got ported to Windows 95 and that pretty much was the beginning of the end of
Mac-exclusive gaming, the final nail in that coffin being Halo (which was
supposed to premiere on Macs) being bought by Microsoft (which I'm guessing
Jobs simply let happen).

~~~
_acme
Steve Jobs worked at Atari. I don't think there was 'gaming' in the sense that
you mean it when Steve Jobs was younger.

~~~
pmarreck
I don't think he must have gamed much while at Atari.

I can state with some certainty that he never seemed _passionate_ about games
or gaming. I think he liked being a productive businessman and just didn't see
the beauty nor profit in gaming until it was too late.

I'll never forget the time he demoed Halo (which was supposed to be PowerPC-
first!) at Macworld Expo:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzrme9yWens](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzrme9yWens)
We all know the huge letdown that happened after that. (Or at least, every Mac
and gaming fan knows.)

I wonder if Jason Jones already knew at this point that they were going to
sell out to Microsoft...

------
elvinyung
Another interesting (and sad) recollection about games in early Apple
products:
[https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...](https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Alice.txt&sortOrder=Sort+by+Rating&topic=Marketing)

------
seltzered_
see also: [https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/03/the-mac-gaming-
consol...](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/03/the-mac-gaming-console-time-
has-forgot/)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=https:%2F%2Farstechnica.com%2F...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=https:%2F%2Farstechnica.com%2Fgaming%2F2018%2F03%2Fthe-
mac-gaming-console-time-has-
forgot%2F&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

------
donatj
I've played one a couple times. The latest time at the Midwest Gaming Classic
which is happening again in a couple weeks. I actually really dig the
controller, find it strangely comfortable.

~~~
vanadium
I'll be at MGC in a couple of weeks and kinda hope that Pippin's there so I
can have a go at it. :)

------
mwfunk
I somehow never noticed that the Pippin controller was a batarang, like the
prototype PS2 controller.

~~~
madeofpalk
Boomerang?

~~~
Someone
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batarang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batarang):

 _”A batarang is a roughly bat-shaped throwing weapon used by the DC Comics
superhero Batman. The name is a portmanteau of bat and boomerang, and was
originally spelled baterang.”_

~~~
madeofpalk
Right. I wouldnt exactly say that the pippin controller is bat-shaped.

------
teddyh
Review from 2017:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h4t33tOG60](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h4t33tOG60)

------
rocky1138
The Personal Computer Museum in Brantford, Ontario, Canada has one of these.
It was the first time I had seen one in real life.

~~~
simonlc
A flea market used game store has on in Montrel North. I asked how much and
they reeally had no idead how much it was worth and quoted $4k because of an
ebay listing.

~~~
vanadium
Console hardware collector here. $4K is insanely overpriced unless the thing
was never opened in the first place.

I've been meaning to get a Bandai @tmark Pippin from Japan, but we're still
talking maybe $500-600 and the "games" are just too hard to find outside of a
couple of non-gaming titles. Finding Bungie's Marathon is nigh impossible, for
instance.

------
digi_owl
Seems all the old guard of the micro era tried to go console in the end:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_CD32](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_CD32)

~~~
protomyth
Atari
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_XEGS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_XEGS)
interestingly they didn't do the SE version [edit: I should of said ST not SE]

~~~
digi_owl
Was considering including that one, except that it was based more on the Atari
competition to the C64 rather than the ST.

------
EamonnMR
Looks like I'm not the only one reading Secret History of Mac Gaming.

------
daodedickinson
I'd play that racing game for a few minutes.

