Pippin

Pippin was an open multimedia technology platform, designed by Apple Computer, and marketed as PiPP!N by Bandai and Katz Media. According to Apple, Pippin was directed at the home market as "an integral part of the consumer audiovisual, stereo, and television environment."

Pippin was based on a run-time version of Apple's Macintosh operating system and second-generation Power Macintosh hardware.

History
On December 13, 1994, less than 3 months after the launch of the Playdia system, Apple Computer announced the new Pippin platform in Tokyo. Bandai CEO Makoto Yamashina (山科誠) had selected Apple's Macintosh as the basis of the Pippin due to its ease of use. The console was initially called the Pippin Power Player and had been scheduled for release during the 1995 holiday shopping season. By the time it debuted in March 1996 as the Pippin Atmark in Japan, Bandai had spent $93 million on marketing and development. The American version, the Pippin @WORLD, did not ship until the following December, missing much of the 1996 holiday season.

On June 4, 1996, Katz Media announced in Paris that it was joining the partnership to market the platform in Europe. Bandai produced the consoles as an OEM for Katz Media. The KMP 2000 began shipping in Europe on March 17, 1997. During Marché international des Inforoutes et du Multimédia '97, Groupe Arborescence announced a partnership with Katz Media to develop and market a new Euro-Canadian console based on the Pippin for the Canadian market.

Reception and discontinuation
Bandai originally set sales targets of 200,000 units in Japan and 300,000 units in the United States. Analyst Fujine Yasuaki (藤根靖晃) of Smith Barney International was less optimistic, projecting sales to reach half of the target. By September 1996, an online poll conducted by MacUser (USA) magazine found that a plurality of participants preferred that Apple cancel the Pippin over other product lines, such as Newton and Performa.

Steve Jobs, one of the original Apple co-founders, returned to the company while it was facing financial difficulty, and was named Interim CEO on September 16, 1997. While reorganizing Apple to return it to profitability, Jobs eliminated many underperforming projects, such as the Pippin. After only selling 30,000 and 12,000 units respectively in Japan and the United States, Bandai announced on February 27, 1998 that it would officially abandon the Pippin platform and close its subsidiary Bandai Digital Entertainment on March 13, 1998. At the time, over 50,000 unsold units remained in inventory and Bandai's losses from the Pippin were estimated at $214 million dollars.

Titles
Bandai had expected to launch about 200 CD-ROM titles for the Pippin platform, with an emphasis on teaching and learning. However, only about half of that number had reached the market.


 * ''See also: List of Pippin titles (at the Pippin @World & Atmark Wiki)