So why don't we talk of the Pippin fondly, as we do the N64, the Saturn or the original PlayStation? For starters, the system never sold well, despite being released with fanfare in Japan. In fact, it sold so poorly that it never saw the light of day in North America. Four main situations led to its demise:
» Developers considered the Motorola 603 PowerPC processor slow and cumbersome, so the decision to use it for the Pippin was met with derision.
» The system online capabilities depended on a 14.4-kbit/s internal modem, which was also slow, even for dial-up connections, and non-upgradeable.
» When it was released in Japan, the system was priced at $600—almost $300 to $400 more than its competition.
» The system was marketed as a low-cost home computer, despite its having the look and feel of a video game console.
These problems and others added up, causing the system to amount to nothing more than a footnote in gaming history. Still, some positives came from the experience.
Apple pioneered the integration of online capabilities into video gaming. Without that bold idea, who knows if popular online gaming platforms like Xbox Live would exist today?
And Apple as an organization learned from this debacle. Shortly after the Pippin's discontinuation, Steve Jobs was promoted to CEO, and the company took a more focused approach to consumer electronics. Soon thereafter, it turned itself around with the release of the iMac G3. And the rest is history.
Allan Yogasingam is a technology analyst for TechOnline, a division of TechInsights. He holds a bachelor's in computer engineering from the University of Manitoba.
