Gadgetory

- What if Apple made a game console? (techno music) Sure, a lot of popular Apple products are able to play games nowadays across phones to tablets to even the Apple TV. But, none of these devices are really built for that specific intended purpose. It was something that was added on later. What about the concept of an actual dedicated gaming console from Apple? That's something that actually did happen over 20 years ago with the Apple Pippin. - [Man] The structure of the Pippin is - Pippy! Atmark! - Based on every Pippin's - [Announcer] Scottie Pippen! - Kind of. The Apple Pippin wasn't actually any specific one piece of hardware, but was instead something that Apple was experimenting with during the years between when Steve Jobs had left the company and when he had come back. It was a core concept that Apple had back in the early 90s to create a scaled-down simpler version of Macintosh computers that were aimed at consumers, something that could be a full multimedia device whether it's for movies, music, video games, whatever. And the idea was that instead of making their own Apple Pippin products, they would license that core technology out to other companies. And they would make whatever hardware they wanted, as long as Apple was attached. By the way, the name Apple Pippin actually comes from the type of Apple called a Newton Pippin which is a smaller scaled-down version of the Macintosh Apple. So, pretty thematically appropriate name. - [Host] It was a fine apple for eating. - Now, while Apple was putting this idea out there, there weren't that many actual companies that ended up working with them before the entire project fell apart. And, only one in particular actually made its way into being a system that was launched on store shelves. That was done with the company Bandai. - This from Bandai! - Now again this is during the early to mid 90's when video games were really starting to boom a lot more in the US. We saw the return of more systems and we really had that heated rivalry between Nintendo and Sega. - What NintenDon't. - So there's a lot of new people trying to enter the market. Bandai's approach was to try and make a video game console using Apple's Pippin technology. The result of this partnership led to two specific pieces of hardware that people often refer to as the Apple Pippin. One was the Bandai Atmark released in Japan and the other was the Bandai @World released in the US. A lot of this stuff on paper sounds pretty good, right? - [News Anchor] Apple was betting that the TV would be the preferred viewing device with a new approach to home computing called Pippin. - So, why did it fail? (upbeat music) ♪ Pippin, my daydream, everything inside out, ♪ ♪ listen to your heartbeat. ♪ - So, we've got our Pippin opened up, but now we need some games to play. We actually do have on hand one of the Bandai Atmarks. This was the original model released in Japan first. There was that other option, the @World, which was released worldwide mostly in the US, a little bit in Europe and they are specification-wise, the same thing. The only major difference is the @World was shipped in a black design and again was released for different markets. As you can see, the Atmark is pretty bulky compared to its other contemporary systems, namely the N64 and the original PlayStation which focused on having a very rectangular footprint and not being very tall, whereas the Atmark is a lot more kind of scrunched in and very box-like. There's a lot more going on in the main body of it as well. On the front along with having the two ports for controllers, you do also have an audio outport and there's a bunch of buttons on the top of the box that are multimedia controllers. As I said earlier the Atmark did have a wireless controller option, but we actually just have the wired one here to show off. It's kind of a weird design. It reminds me a lot of the original conceptual pitches for the PS3 controller which is very boomerang-shaped. Of course, this came out quite a bit before then. And, you can see how it's kind of this hybrid between what was popular in game controllers, but also what was happening in PC gaming. For instance, you can see how it does have an incorporated handle design, kind of like what the N64 and PlayStation has, but it is incorporated into one singular shape. The biggest influence though from PC and Mac gaming is the fact that it has actual trackball for controls, along with having a D-Pad, four front facing buttons, three buttons on the bottom and two shoulder buttons that are really inset. It's certainly an overall design that makes a very clear statement about being different from the competition, although in retrospect, I'm not sure if visually these aged very well compared to what the other systems have done. Though the N64 controller is an abomination. So, having this on hand I did want to try to be able to get some games to play on it, which are actually really really hard to track down. So, I decided to go a slightly slightly shadier way of getting it to work which actually I still couldn't get to work. So, we had to call in our resident Apple expert to help us figure out what we needed to do. So, Travis, I have a bit of a confession to make. The main reason we're making this video right now is because I really wanted to play Super Marathon on the Pippin and I couldn't get it to work. So, I needed an excuse to make you figure it. Why can't I get this to work? Or why couldn't I get this to work? - So, after some quick discovery, I found out that Pippin games are actually somewhat complex because the operating system and the game live on the disc and those are basically married together. So, a lot of games that are available and there aren't very many, online they just have the game files. The Pippin actually can't load an operating system to make the game boot. I went through a series of steps going from a Windows computer to back to a Mac, and then back and forth to finally be able to burn them and get them to work with both the operating system and the game files. You can see here that we actually had our first attempt not go well and that I kind of went back to the drawing board and looked at some of the newer, different options. We got to what you have now. - So, it works then? - It does work now. - Yes. - Yes. - When it was first released in 1996, there was a lot this console had going for it that its competition like the N64 and the PlayStation didn't have. It supported 16-bit color, it had an early form of a wireless controller, it wasn't region-locked so you could actually play games from Japan on the US version or vice versa. Like the PlayStation, it was an early disc based system, and its tech specs were well above what a lot of the competition had. Most intriguing of all though this was one of the first gaming focused consoles that actually offered an Internet connection and had the ability to use an Internet browser. - [Person] So, the Apple computer page. - This was a feature that was super ahead of its time. Keep in mind, a lot of people make that same statement about the Dreamcast which came out two years later after the Pippin. The Pippin was also one of the first systems that really tried walking that kind of in between the line of a gaming console and a home personal computer including the fact that it supported both AV out and VGA. You could either hook it up to your home's main television system and use it like a set-top box or connect it to a monitor for a desk set up. Because of its origins as a multimedia device for the core Pippin technology, the kind of games that were available in the Atmark and @World were pretty varied, including some titles that were more traditional full-blown video games and games that were more along the lines of edutainment or kind of just creative programs. - To e-mail, you can send and receive messages to and from anywhere in the world. - Because of its origins and Pippin being designed for multimedia use, the kind of games that were on the Atmark and @World were pretty varied. On one end of the spectrum, you had very traditional straight up video games, a really good example being Marathon which was Bungie's kind of prototype early version of what eventually became Halo on the Xbox. And, on the other end of the spectrum, you had games that were more like edutainment and a lot of which relied on licenses that Bandai had access to like Dragon Ball. We have the Pippin hooked up and we have our selection of completely legitimate games that should be working, or so Travis tells me. Yes, it's definitely from the 90s. So, this is insane that right now it's reading the OS off of that disc. It has to make this boot title a lot slower than it would have been otherwise. I have to use the trackball to move the mouse, so that's already wonderful which views selects. The answer is the shoulder button. I guess it's kind of works like mouse clicks. It even has kind of a clicky-ness to it. It's weird to think that Bungie technically worked on the Apple game before they worked on a Microsoft one. Ooo, boy! Okay, so all right. How do I fire? He's coming for me. There we go. I think I crouched on accident. (gunfire) Blood everywhere! This is awesome. And, I am bad at it. Turning it back on. - [Game Console] Pippin. - That sounded weird. Should we play that sound again? Let's play that sound again. - [Game Console] Pippin. - Yeah, that's weird. Trackballs are the worse form of control ever. Try this again. Oh, yeah. Oh, this is 90s. Do you see the high-quality graphics here? Oh, boy, this is certainly a game. What is happening? (laughing) Get 50% for weapon. Well, the Pippin had a lot of cool stuff going for it. It had a lot more problems that led to its pretty immediate failure. First of all is the one weakness that a lot of consoles had their downfall caused by price point. When it came out in 1996, there were already a couple of new generation systems out, and one of the leading examples was the PlayStation which launched at $299. By comparison, the Pippin launched at $599, twice as much, making it a very expensive option compared to the competition. - [Man] Bandai is shipping this device now at 648,000 yen which is set by today's rate of about $650. That's for the device, the modem, and five titles. - While the technology behind the system might have been an argument for why it had such a high price point, it wasn't helped by the fact that there wasn't really a software library that made it enticing enough for people to want to buy in the first place. Sure, they had some licenses to work with, like Dragon Ball, but no major game developers at the time were really interested in working with Apple or Bandai. They already had agreements to work either with Nintendo still, Sega, or switched over to Sony when the PlayStation came. Another huge problem is that one of the unique features of the Pippin that might have been a strong selling point, the ability to browse the Internet, just didn't work very well. The modem that was built into the Pippin was under half the speed of standard modems at the time they were out during 1996. There was the problem that if you hooked it up to the TV, which a lot of people would have, considering that it was treated like a game console, well, you couldn't actually read anything in the browser because CRTs weren't high enough resolution to display modern web pages at the time. All of these problems combined with a lack of advertising behind the Atmark and @World caused the systems to sell greatly under what Apple and Bandai were hoping for. And, the final nail on the coffin is when Steve Jobs returned to Apple and did away with any programs they had that involved any of kind of clone technology, AKA licensing out their software to other companies to build things off of. They wanted to now make everything in-house, making the Pippen one of the immediate projects that was put to an end. The Apple Pippin systems had their problems and in retrospect it makes sense why they failed, but they really did lay the groundwork for a lot of features that are now standard in modern day consoles. And, were one of the first steps to truly making a multimedia gaming system.