PC World says Apple's Pippin is the "worst"
by Christopher Grant 
{ May 28th 2006 at 11:00PM }
PC World magazine listed Apple's ill-fated game console, the Pippin, 22nd on their list of the "25 Worst Tech Products of All Time," writing:
"Apple had an Internet-capable game console that connected to your TV. But it ran on a weak PowerPC processor and came with a puny 14.4-kbps modem, so it was stupendously slow offline and online. Then, too, it was based on the Mac OS, so almost no games were available for it. And it cost nearly $600--nearly twice as much as other, far more powerful game consoles."
Of course, we recognize the Pippin not only for its contribution to the annals of also-ran consoles, but also as fodder for years of subsequent rumors of another Apple game console. Of course, it also lets Mac zealots everywhere point and stomp, claiming gaming consoles as yet another area where Apple beat their arch-nemesis Microsoft to the proverbial punch. Might want to let this one die fellas, it's just better that way.
[Via TUAW]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Canadian Geese @ May 28th 2006 11:08PM
No thanks.
On a side note, I've still got my old Vectrex sitting in my closet. =)
SLy @ May 28th 2006 11:12PM
Shh.. We don't want to get all piped out about this disgrace of a console. The shame...
Kwipper @ May 28th 2006 11:22PM
Why can't the mac fanboys just realize that nobody really gives a damn about OSX? It's so bad that virus writers don't really give a damn about writing viruses for it.
robert @ May 28th 2006 11:47PM
anyone else think that controller looks a little familiar?
sony may have scrapped the boomerang but they still have the same price point... amazing what $600 used to get you. makes me feel a little better about the cost of the ps3
ABigSmall @ May 28th 2006 11:47PM
"Might want to let this one die fellas, it's just better that way."
Yeah, you've certainly done a good job doing that. Oh wait, isn't this a post on the Apple Pippin? ;)
Jaded @ May 29th 2006 12:07AM
Well the Pippin was better than the CDi and he Pippin didn't even come out!
Sorry folks, that's all I got.
Kamalot @ May 29th 2006 12:12AM
"And it cost nearly $600--nearly twice as much as other, far more powerful game consoles."
Yeah, like the PS3 is nearly 2X the price of the competition? A few years from now, people will be putting the PS3 price point down in the "10 biggest mistakes ever" lists, right up there with Nintendo passing by CD media for the N64 and way more stupid than trying to launch the Sega Saturn early.
RazorElite @ May 29th 2006 12:16AM
Lol. PS3 is not a bargain. It's paying for a bunch of stuff you don't need.
Kenofthedead @ May 29th 2006 12:18AM
It was still better then the 3D0
Sean DL @ May 29th 2006 12:38AM
100 million people need PS3?
I think 100 million people need food and shelter more then a brand new six hundred dollar video game system/high-def dvd player that forces you to buy Spider Man 2 again....
But what do I know? 100 million people bought something in the past, they did it again, right?
Just like all those people who saw the Matrix Reloaded, showed up for the Matrix Revolutions....Oh wait..they didn't....
Goes to show you can't look at the past for what going to happen next. After all, while on topic, who'd a thought that Apple Computers would dethrone the Sony domination on music devices? Sure hell wasn't the former President of Sony that saw that coming.
Ritz @ May 29th 2006 1:06AM
Ya know what? Fat Sony Fanboy, some of the comments you have made, make sense. It is clear that the PS and the PS2 won the last two console wars. But that doesn't mean they are invincible.
Nintendo won the two console wars previous to the PS(2). After the smashing success of the SNES, it looked like the N64 was going to be a surefire winner. It was much more powerful than the (at the time, two year old) PS1 and Nintendo had just won the previous bout against Sega. But we all know what happened. Nintendo got cocky and lost, to an "inferior machine", to put it simply.
History looks likes it repeating itself in a mirror. The Playstation 3 is now the N64 with its superior graphics and large install base from the last generation. While Nintendo is now the Playstation with lackluster graphical power but rising momentum no one had originaly expected.
Along with the Xbox 360 sitting ahead with a fair headstart and $200 cheaper than its direct competitor. Developers will go to where the install base is. Gamers will go to where the best value sits.
So far, the best value sits with a Wii60. Nintendo knows very well, through experience, you can't bet your future purely on brand loyality. Sony would be wise to learn from Nintendo's history, too.
$600.00 is an ugly number.
neale @ May 29th 2006 1:18AM
"3. anyone else think that controller looks a little familiar?"
damn rite. is that a guide button in the middle?
boots @ May 29th 2006 1:22AM
Did anyone notice how the list has 3 Microsoft products? I'm surprised no Microsoft console is there though... one had very few games worth owning, and the other one dies very often.
idioteraser @ May 29th 2006 1:53AM
Ahem the playstation 3 isn't all that powerfull. Any game it has can be put on the 360 and look the same. 500 dollars is what the blu-ray is costing to put in along with a lot of other crap that doesn't work for gaming.
Cell is a joke as is multicore processing. Until development make game writing code for multicore processing that makes the games perform far better then a single core version then game consoles should invest in the tech.
HD costs a lot of system power for minor improvements that the vast majority of people cannot see. You can still make a game look like utter crap in HD. It's up to the game developers and art style.
idioteraser @ May 29th 2006 1:54AM
I never even heard of the Pippin before. It's not mentioned on any gaming site unlike the 3DO and NEO-GEO.
Did they really put this in stores on a nationwide level or did it only launch in a few cities and failed on the test market?
uytran @ May 29th 2006 2:07AM
The Apple Pipping will cost
500 and 99 US dollars
500 and 99 US dollars
cost
500 and 99 US dollars
500 and 99 US dollars
Trae @ May 29th 2006 2:46AM
*insert random fanboy comment*
teitoku @ May 29th 2006 3:11AM
Beat WHO to the punch? The MSX had been out for years.
Felix Andrews @ May 29th 2006 3:34AM
Please check out Kotaku's coverage on this article for a rather intriguing tidbit.
(is promptly banned)
Jon A. @ May 29th 2006 3:37AM
DAMN! Joystiq got straight dissed (from Kotaku), here is a quote straight from their site from their Pippin article:
"But, you ask, what came in at number one PC Worlds "25 Worst Products of All Time"? Why Joystiq's parent company, AOL."
I smell a gang war a brewin' What y'all do, take their readers?
sha @ May 29th 2006 3:54AM
hah, taking 'beating the dead horse' to the next level huh? isn't the title a bit misleading since too bad this little console isn't #1 the worst, guess who is?
Thomas Averin @ May 29th 2006 4:09AM
Yeah I agree. Whats the freakin deal with this article? Is there a reason for it?
Duds @ May 29th 2006 4:52AM
13. Did anyone notice how the list has 3 Microsoft products? I'm surprised no Microsoft console is there though... one had very few games worth owning, and the other one dies very often.
Well your xbox jibe is clearly wrong but at least that's a matter of opinon.
And the 360's return rate is comfortably below the level that is average for new electronic goods. Amazing what the media will have you believe.
Raydeen @ May 29th 2006 5:09AM
The idea of the Pippin was very cool, the execution was not.
epobirs @ May 29th 2006 5:46AM
#6
How do you figure? CD-i sold millions of units and had a considerable software library. It suffered from bring artificially constrained from offering console style games, even though it was quite capable of doing in software anything a SNES or Genesis was then offering but in much higher resolution and color depth. (This would be largely in software, much like an Atari ST.) Parts of Philips' brain damage was worrying that certain kinds of games would cause the CD-i to be perceived as an overpriced Nintendo competitor. Instead, they created a situation where parents felt they would still need to buy a Nintendo and Sega regardless of how much the kids also like the edutainment library on the CD-i. (Really ill-conceived efforts like the Zelda and Link games are just bad projects of unique awfulness separate from the bad policy decisions.)
CD-i did a lot better in Europe than the US, since it was more competitive with PC prices there and Video CD was more of an enticement. Not to mention ease of use in an era where multimedia PC use was still fraught with frustration. A product that seems non-existent in one region can be popular in another, like Sony's Mini-Disc.
Cd-i managed to sell a fair amount of stuff despite the bad choices by Philips that they tried to reverse far too late to make a difference. If they'd entered the market with sprite=oriented action games readily accepted they could easily have gained a legion of enhanced ports from the Atari ST and Amiga along with a lot of new material from those developers. As it was, a lot of titles that did eventually appear was such ports but again, far too late to build an audience.
CD-i did a lot of business before finally fading away. The Bandai @world (the Apple Pippin brand was not on the shipping product) was largely DOA and most consumers never knew it existed.
epobirs @ May 29th 2006 6:11AM
For those of you wondering, the thing in the middle of the controller is a trackball. As a web browser input that was the next best thing to a mouse and consistent with Apple laptops for a few generations.
The article is a bit unfair on a few issues. In 1996 the PowerPC 603 was one of the best performing CPUs around. And 5 MB of RAM was nothing to sneeze at. The machine lacked any 3D hardware but the same was true of nearly all PCs at the time as well. (Add-on 3D boards that worked with existing 2D hardware, like the VooDoo II boards, were the most popular choice but barely supported compared to 3D becoming a common requirement just a couple years later.)
Like virtually all web browsers on NTSC/PAL, the @World (also sold as ATMARK in Japan with the Apple connection more prominent) looked excellent with a VGA screen and didn't need any special cables. The standard 15-pin port was right there. And you could get a regular 1.44 MB floppy drive to get closer to computer-style tasks like paint programs.
But that raised the question of why you were buying this thing instead of just getting a real Mac or PC? Part of the answer was that Apple was deeply attached to a profit margin on Macs that was huge compared to what PC vendors expected. Instead of just doing a low-end Mac with better gamng features (and royalty driven games to help subsidize the low price) Apple wanted to get a piece of the console market without giving those attracted to the Apple brand any reason to want this product. Part of the long self-defeating Apple need to have their cake and eat it, too.
The box had plenty of potential for some great games but Apple spent so long trying to decide what it was and what it wasn't that Sony was given a wide open field in which to define what a CD-ROM based game console should be. Early on, Sony toyed with add-ons to make the PlayStation into a home computer (for mainstreamers, not Net Yaroze programmers) but after great early success with the gaming focus decided not to mess with what worked. They did it again and the PS2 and again realized it wasn't worth the trouble after devoting part of an E3 booth to a demo of Netscape and other apps nobody serious really wanted on a game console.
Sometimes success is down to a company figuring out what business they're in and shutting out distractions.
epobirs @ May 29th 2006 6:13AM
Oops, that should read: Like virtually all web browsers on NTSC/PAL the display was horrible, the @World (also sold as ATMARK in Japan with the Apple connection more prominent) looked excellent with a VGA screen and didn't need any special cables.
Joystiq tries to insight flame war @ May 29th 2006 6:22AM
Nice try Joystiq. Nothing like trying to start a fame war. LOL!
This gaming machine is from way back in 1994 I think. This is before Steve Jobs was running the company for the second time and before OS X and before the ipod. This is so old you must have been really digging.
Jay @ May 29th 2006 6:54AM
Sorry Joystiq, bad article. It was the specs thing that got me. a 14kbps modem in 1995? I would have been all over that at the time. Same for the CPU, top of its game.
I suppose the GB sucks too, because it has a very weak CPU these days. Ditto for the Nes, Snes and PS1? Aye.
Kotaku was funny.
kevinski @ May 29th 2006 7:20AM
"damn rite. is that a guide button in the middle?"
Actually, it's a trackball.
TC @ May 29th 2006 8:12AM
Ha Ha! Nice one Jon A! Chris Grant: Although the Pippen was bad, I think PC World actually said AOL was the "worst" - I'm sure you'll change the title to reflect that :-)
And epobirs - I'm from europe and the CDi was a bit of a stinker. Fair enough the games were the wrong type, but the CDi didn't have a good enough gamepad to play "Sprite-based" games. The whole machine seemed designed to run "playable movies" from the ground up and that gamepad was still the worst controller I've ever used (4 buttons but could only map 2 functions!) the second controller had to plug into the back of the machine (?) and the machine was big and expensive. The only plus point was the excellent sound quality, but the SegaCD came out and took the only few reasons left to buy a CD-i (the segaCD had worse graphics, but could play music Cd's and had the whole genesis range of games to choose from. And a six button controller!) but even the SegaCD lacked great success.
boots @ May 29th 2006 8:40AM
I had a Pippin in my cottage, i couldnt afford any other game consoles at the time, with my minimum wage job and all, cleaning windows and singing on the streets with a hat at my feet... but yeah, since pippin is the only console i had, i will say it was rather good, because you know, people who havn't tried the other consoles and are only going to buy one will say the other consoles suck. so yea, xbox was good, has some good exclusives, KOTOR, fable, Halo 2, prolly the best games i've ever played, too bad we get a ton of crappy games like donald duk adventure and other games that sell 2000 units.
Clawed chains @ May 29th 2006 8:46AM
Why are people saying 'Why isn't there a Microsoft console on that list?'
Uh, hello, The Xbox made a profit near the end, and still is, I wouldn't call that a failure, would you?
They also brought Online Gaming on a console to the next level, the best online service ever, Xbox Live.
Its got a massive fanbase of supporters.
Just because the Japanese didn't buy the Xbox, because of the size, it doesn't mean its a failure. (The Japanese don't like buying big things, they have small peepee's, and are scared of huge things)
I rather thought it was a huge sucsess, myself.
jaemz @ May 29th 2006 8:52AM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Pippin
Nothing like a bit of warm weather to thaw the trolls and bring them out in full force. I suspect we must have a lot of vacant bridges now...
striderhayasa @ May 29th 2006 9:36AM
You're wrong @ Clawed Chains. Microsoft made no profit on the xbox. They lost $4 billion on it and believe me when I say Microsoft doesn't want to think about the Xbox and can't forget about it fast enough. MS sold units but sold ALL of them at a loss. Nintendo made far more money on the gamecube even though they sold over 2 million units less than the xbox because they didn't take a loss on the hardware.
Rocketboy @ May 29th 2006 9:55AM
AOL? Worst Ever? Looks like someone has a beef. Yes, AOL has been utterly pointless since the internet took off, but before that? Best technology ever. And no, I don't use AOL, only used it when I could get it for free (to access the internet), but I do remember the huge concept of connecting with a USA-wide BBS, and not just calling up the computer in your buddies house in the next town over.
Rocketboy @ May 29th 2006 9:56AM
AOL? Worst Ever? Looks like someone has a beef. Yes, AOL has been utterly pointless since the internet took off, but before that? Best technology ever. And no, I don't use AOL, only used it when I could get it for free (to access the internet), but I do remember the huge concept of connecting with a USA-wide BBS, and not just calling up the computer in your buddies house in the next town over.
JPRacer @ May 29th 2006 10:24AM
I think Compuserve was much better than AOL. AOHell is a joke.
mocax @ May 29th 2006 10:27AM
A console named after a bumbling hobbit simply falls short :D
dvddesign @ May 29th 2006 10:33AM
Any Joystiq/Kotaku gamg war would look awful. There'd be people dressed in powder blue and orange fighting against people dressed in Lime green and electric pink. It'd look like someone vomited all over.
skilesbot @ May 29th 2006 10:36AM
#3:
You're not the only one who reads ctrl-alt-del. At least try rephrasing your stolen insult next time.
Antec @ May 29th 2006 10:39AM
i cant believe noone posted Virtual Boy yet. ba-zing!
Dave Silva @ May 29th 2006 10:53AM
@31:
Aww, you beat me to it. The system was pretty damn fast for its time, regardless of what some article says. We didn't always use CPUs that had speeds over 100hz, dammit. Heck... back then I was using Windows 3.1 in 486s computers at my high school's network! And the internet was SLOW. And WE LIKED IT!
(Okay, we didn't like it, but it was something!)
Sparky Santos @ May 29th 2006 11:20AM
Worked with Bandai on this. Too many folks dropped the ball on this project.
It was a headless 6100 that came out without the promised ported games and it was priced cheaper than it should have been.
I saw a gym treadmill with one of them in it - for browsing the InterNet. Wee!
KNS @ May 29th 2006 11:57AM
They should re-release it in white with a big Apple logo on it... ;)
Hitch @ May 29th 2006 12:01PM
"But, you ask, what came in at number one PC Worlds "25 Worst Products of All Time"? Why Joystiq's parent company, AOL."
o.O This site just lost a boat load of respect from me if true :(
Jon A. @ May 29th 2006 12:34PM
To #45:
Joystiq is a owned by Weblogs, Inc. which just recently got aquired by AOL. I guess their father-in-law?
Doesn't change their credibilty.
epobirs @ May 29th 2006 12:48PM
#33
The original CD-i controller was part of the poor policy decisions by Philips. They were convinced that supporting console style games would be bad for their image and that included making the controller something more like an elaborate TV remote than anything suited for fast action. The hardware itself could do the job well enough and Philips later released a decent clone of the Genesis controller for action games, after it was too late and other platforms had closed the lead. I had a lot of former co-workers from another job end up working for Philips' software operation in LA. They didn't like the restrictions on what projects they could pursue but they were getting to an age when the considerations of a family and mortgage took took precedence over hardware and genre preferences. Philips wasn't going to bounce a paycheck and that had become far more important than in their bachelor days.
I don't recall the CD-i not being able to play music CDs. I'd have to drag my old freebie out of storage. At one point Philips tried to flog a web browser for CD-i. This required the MPEG-1 decoder because that added a megabyte of addressable RAM to the system. They sent one of those units out to us for review and I was the only one who cared enough to bother. I ended up keeping it and a while later getting dozens of movies and games from Best Buy when they were blowing out the inventory. Some of the games were actually pretty good but I'd have never have taken the chance without the free hardware.
TC, I didn't say the CD-i was a big success in Europe. Just that it gained a far stronger audience there. (It helps that Philips had a better shot at positive brand recognition there.)Compared to the North American market there was a much better reception and the platform was also quite popular in the interactive kiosk business where Philips competed with Pioneer's well established LaserDisc based product. They also sold a lot of stuff into educational markets, especially worker training systems.
The CD-i business wasn't nearly the disaster you might think it was if your only perspective on it was as a game console. Philips blew it big time on the home consumer market compared to what might have been with a more accepting attitude toward software diversity but the overall CD-i undertaking was not a gaping financial sinkhole.
epobirs @ May 29th 2006 12:53PM
Yes, like a long list of companies over the years, AOL acquired ownership of Weblogs, Inc. This naturally means that everything having to do with Weblogs, Inc. retroactively sucks. Please revise any perceptions to the contrary you might once have had.
Got any favorite movies or cartoons that came out of Warner Bros.? Some thing applies. You are now required to disavow any fondness you might once have had for those product no matter how tenuous their actual relation to AOL may be.
bladestar @ May 29th 2006 1:06PM
"You're wrong @ Clawed Chains. Microsoft made no profit on the xbox. They lost $4 billion on it and believe me when I say Microsoft doesn't want to think about the Xbox and can't forget about it fast enough. MS sold units but sold ALL of them at a loss. Nintendo made far more money on the gamecube even though they sold over 2 million units less than the xbox because they didn't take a loss on the hardware."
You are forgetting one little detail about Microsoft, they are the richest company in the entire world and can take Nintendo’s profits and wipe they ass with it. Microsoft is known for making long term investment and only an ignorant fanboy is dumb enough to not see the impact that its making to the video game industry. It is making companies like Sony go bankruptcy and Nintendo is not even trying to compete but instead try a different approach (Nintendo is being smart). I think they are doing very well considering the fact that any company that tried competing with the Japanese video game market failed and the amount of fanboys such as yourself. And what do you call lost!? 4 billions? pocket change, money that they will make with windows vista and Live everywhere even if the 360 dies. The 360 is already more successful than the xbox if you consider the level of support in the development community. I know most of you will not agree with this but microsoft's xbox 360 is driving the video game industry. How do I know? Sony is playing catch up trying to copy as much as they can from the 360 (Sony you are NOT Microsoft), and Nintendo is playing smart by not even trying to match the XBox 360 in anyway, instead making a complementary console that we can buy if we want to play one or two games differently. And Microsoft is being nice by not creating any direct competition with Nintendo (Not making any wiimote-like controller like our friends at Sony). Microsoft understands that everyone needs to eat, even Nintendo.