Why failed the "Pippin at Mark" gaming machine that did not sell the best in the world?

byFlávio Dechen

From Magna box in 1972 "OdysseySince its release, various models of domestic game machines have appeared while repeated generations. Nintendo released in the 1980sNESAnd Sega'sMega driveEtc. are still popular game machines from retro game fans, but there are also unfaithful game machines lost from the memory of people who have been buried in the long history of home game machines on the other hand. As an example, "Pippin at mark"Of technology-based mediaars technicaIt is introduced in.

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In mid-1993, Apple had sluggish performance with all of laser printers and color monitors developed by investing 600 million dollars (about 63 billion yen), which had been poor. In 1993 PC market at the time Apple was about 12% share,AT compatible machineIt sold 10 times as much as the Macintosh, and Apple 's share was steadily shrinking. A PDA terminal issued as a measure for resuscitationApple Newton"Received a criticism due to poor operability and size too large as a PDA, and it ended completely in failure.

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Therefore, by releasing the license of Mac system which Apple occupied until then, allowing non-Apple companies to manufacture Macintosh hardware, at the same time, by introducing game software compatible with Mac OS to the market, Apple's directors and executives thought that they could take away their share from Microsoft. In addition, Steve Jobs, one of the founder of Apple, has already been expelled from Apple at this time and is retiring from the board of directors.

At that time, Mr. Eric Sirkin, director of the Macintosh OEM product, received the approach of making Mac OS based game machines from Bandai, a Japanese toy company.

In 1994, BandaiPower RangerHas grown to become a worldwide big company steadily, by hitting in the United States and earning about 330 million dollars (about 35 billion yen) from the sales of related products. He is the eldest son of the founderMakoto YamashinaMr. Bandai was drawing a concept to expand Bandai as a global entertainment company like Disney and Nintendo, not as a mere action figure toy company. Bandai has planned to develop Mac OS-based multimedia machines that can play games of their own character such as "Sailor Moon", "Dragon Ball" and "Power Ranger".

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So, Mr. Sirkin jumped to Japan to do research, and we discussed with Bandai and launched the "Pippin Project". However, Personal Interactive Electronics (PIE), Apple's gaming machine development department, was not at all motivated to manufacture game machines with Japanese companies. Therefore, Apple has entered into a contract that involves only hard development cooperation, not involving any manufacturing, marketing or branding work involved.

However, Apple and Bandai have not been on track since the beginning of the project. Bandai mentioned the concept "inexpensive, compatible with Macs and capable of internet", but Apple thought that "the Internet can not be money" Apple was skeptical about this concept is. Furthermore, because I thought that "the revenue of the current Macintosh should not be reduced by the cheap Mac compatible machine made by another company", Apple demanded a system close to the current Macintosh at the stage of hardware development, The cost jumped up than planned.


A project engineer got strikes as a result of improper communication between Apple and Bandai, the project became more complicated and software engineers strike the delivery date too short to produce sufficient results. Nevertheless, Mr. Cirkin will work on the staff at the work site, and by doing overtime himself himself will manage to finish the "Pippin at mark" within the delivery date, and somehow the production is on stand. As a result of that, 100,000 entries were gathered for the monitor before the release, and Pippin at Mark attracted attention and Apple's management team who was not passionate became to pay attention.

Introduction of Pippin at Mark at the presentation After the speech, Mr. Cirkin got a question from a certain game developer saying, "Is this game machine an internet device or a new game machine?" , Mr. Cirkin could not answer. In the eyes of the members involved in development at the site such as Cirkin, Pippin at mark was reflected on a very excellent machine, but in realityPlayStationYaSega SaturnThe performance of the game was worse than it was, and it was an indisputable machine that there is no computing power as much as a normal PC or Macintosh.


Pippin at mark is a model with a built-in modem in Japan in March 1996 with a tax of 64,800 yen, a single version with modem and some attached software removed in June 1996 was sold at a price of 49,800 yen It was. In comparison with the price of PlayStation's sale of 3,900 yen, which was released two years ago in 1994, and the price of Nintendo 64, which was also released in 1996, 25,000 yen, the price is quite bullish as a game machine I can say

Software released at the same time in the United States is "Anime Designer Dragon Ball Z" "GUNDAM TACTICS MOBILITY FLEET 0079"Besides the transplant work of Bandai's copyright and other games using overseas games as well as encyclopedia software and software for Internet connection, it was suitable for the name of" multimedia machine "and was a genre of various genres. In addition, due to Mac compatibility, it was possible to play some game titles for Mac OS as well. However, I was not blessed with a killer title that would be decisive.


Bandai predicted that "Pippin at Mark will sell 500,000 units," but as a result this forecast was not achieved at all. On the contrary, with sales of 42,000 units worldwide,The world's best selling game machineIt will be handed down to posterity with a disgraceful title called. The Bandai side gave a total loss of 26 billion yen, the Pippin project broke up in March 1997, and Apple laid off 4,100 employees. Too much too much failure is raised by a unique sales method centered on bullish pricing, incomplete performance, poor soft lineup, and telephone order.

Mr. Sirkin, who was involved in the development from the beginning to the end, said, "Pippin at mark failed, but at that time Apple failed to fail that way, Apple made a keen push and developed, second generation If we overlap with the third generation and a new model, it is a successful product, "he insists.