The Apple Bandai Pippin?

[Rudolph]

So I am a big Marathon fan, yet I only recently found out that the firs two entries of this sadly mostly-forgotten franchise had a console port on... the Apple Bandai Pippin. That is right: half a decade before Microsoft took over the market by storm with the Xbox, Apple apparently tried its hand first.

 

However, I must say, I have never heard of the Apple Bandai Pippin before nor would have had it not been for this chance discovery on Wikipedia. I understand from the article that it was a resounding failure, but I am surprised it has never been brought up in the video game history books and retrogaming channels that I know of.

 

Anyone around here familiar with the console? If so, was it really as bad as it seems?

[Doom_Dude]

Never heard of it and what a crappy name for a console. lol

 

 

[Redneckerz]

16 hours ago, Rudolph said:

So I am a big Marathon fan, yet I only recently found out that the firs two entries of this sadly mostly-forgotten franchise had a console port on... the Apple Bandai Pippin. That is right: half a decade before Microsoft took over the market by storm with the Xbox, Apple apparently tried its hand first.

 

However, I must say, I have never heard of the Apple Bandai Pippin before nor would have had it not been for this chance discovery on Wikipedia. I understand from the article that it was a resounding failure, but I am surprised it has never been brought up in the video game history books and retrogaming channels that I know of.

 

Anyone around here familiar with the console? If so, was it really as bad as it seems?

Here here!

 

The Pippin was basically a Power Mac 6100 repurposed as a console. It was made by several companies (Bandai, Atmark/Atworld, Katz) in a similar fashion to 3DO and like it, carried a significant price deficit. Super Marathon is the only shooter for the platform, combining Marathon 1 and 2 in one package.

 

The reason Pippin never took off was not only high prices, but it also underperformed. Though it had a PowerPC processor at 66 Mhz, its TAOS graphics processor was not made for 3D rendering. Though that didnt mean actual 3D texturemapped games existed. (Racing Days).

 

Funny enough, The Macintosh version of DOOM is confirmed to be startable  (But at a unplayable framerate. It might just be that it uses the default resolution though) on Pippin when utilizing a unofficial Kickstart program that was only recently made after discovery of Apple's private key for the Pippin ROM:

 

14 hours ago, Doom_Dude said:

Never heard of it and what a crappy name for a console. lol

It is a fascinating machine, but it had to perform against the PlayStation, the Nintendo 64 and the Saturn. Though it would be comparable in CPU grunt, its graphical prowess was subpar compared to any of these machines - Taos simply was not an early 3D chip. Nevertheless, i believe the Pippin could have had its place if games were developed to take advantage of that PowerPC processor.

 

Being a repurposed Macintosh by heart, its legacy is actually more profound: Its an early attempt at conceptualizing a PC-Console like hybrid which would see later inspiration in the Sega Dreamcast and ultimately Microsoft's Xbox. It isn't the first, however: Fujitsu's FM Towns Marty brought the FM Towns PC-like hardware to an actual console, all the way back in 1991, being 386 based and capable of running Ultima Underworld.

 

Usefull Pippin links:
https://blitter.net/blog/2018/06/07/exploring-the-pippin-roms/

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/03/the-mac-gaming-console-time-has-forgot/

https://pippin.fandom.com/wiki/

Edited March 28, 2021 by Redneckerz

[boris]

Console designed by Apple, controller designed by Chiquita.

 

[Redneckerz]

Found another video which shows that, in fact, Pippin playable of running Doom, if you just ran it windowed:

 

 

 

[Rudolph]

That is interesting! Did you get the chance to try it yourself or are you going with the information you have been able to gather on your end?

 

Anyway, so the Pippin does deserve at least a mention in the history books after all. For the longest time, I was subscribed to the Angry Video Game Nerd channel and I also had the opportunity to read Tristan Donovan's Replay: The History of Video Games, but neither ever brought it up for whatever reason. As far as failed consoles go , the Pippin strikes me as nowhere near as bad as, say, Nintendo's Virtual Boy.

 

Also, I got to be honest, "Pippin" is actually a pretty clever name for an Apple product!

Edited March 28, 2021 by Rudolph

[Redneckerz]

14 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

That is interesting! Did you get the chance to try it yourself or are you going with the information you have been able to gather on your end?

I wish i had a Pippin, but i don't have one. This is just the information i gathered. I love to gather obscure histories together.

14 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

 

Anyway, so the Pippin does deserve at least a mention in the history books after all. For the longest time, I was subscribed to the Angry Video Game Nerd channel and I also had the opportunity to read Tristan Donovan's Replay: The History of Video Games, but neither ever brought it up for whatever reason. As far as failed consolesgo , the Pippin strikes me as nowhere near as bad as, say, Nintendo's Virtual Boy.

It comes close though :P There were only 42.000 sold, and it launched for 599 dollars. Basically, a PS3 back in 1994-1995. you would think that for that kind of money, it had some performance, right?

 

Well... not quite. The mistake Apple pre-return of Steve Jobs made is marketing it as a low cost computer rather than a console. Whilst the PPC 603 was pretty powerful, its graphical hardware was not. Racing Days showcases texture mapping and looks like a poor mans Ridge Racer, but it uses the PPC to render it.

 

Doom is also entirely software. I am amazed it runs relatively fine. I wonder how specialized TC's like WolfenDoom and Batman Doom run on it since those had a Mac version.... with the Pippin Kickstart, atleast the usability of the machine increases significantly.

14 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

 

Also, I got to be honest, "Pippin" is actually a pretty clever name for an Apple product!

Steve Jobs upon his return shot the entire machine down because it was not profitable. So much for that. Ironically, the Apple TV does much of what the Pippin tried to do all the way back in 1995.

[Dark Pulse]

I remember reading about the Pippin back in some old, crusty issue of Gamefan around 1994-1995 or so. Definitely the only time I'd ever really heard the machine mentioned for the most part. I figured it basically became vaporware, like the M2, for a long time until I found out Bandai actually made something out of it.

[[McD] James]

Still less obscure than this thing. 

 

 

[Dark Pulse]

2 hours ago, [McD]James said:

Still less obscure than this thing.

Not to me, sir. Not to me.

 

 

[amackert]

I owned a Pippin for a couple of years. It's a neat system. Very heavy, seems well built. The controller is one of the goofiest I have ever had the pleasure of using. VGA out is a really nice perk, giving you some nice video quality.

 

Not a lot of reason to own one unfortunately outside of collector's purposes, as it's light on real games (it seems edutainment was what the majority of its software lineup consisted of). The ones that are decent can be played elsewhere (Shockwave, the Marathon games, etc). I did own a game called Tropic Island Pinball, basically a port of a Mac game by the same name. It was good but you kind of have to be a pinball fan for that one.

 

It's especially not worth owning these days with the prices rising. I checked a few weeks back and I believe it costs anywhere from $400 to $600 now to acquire one of the basic Atmark versions. It was a bit different years ago when you could get new-in-box ones for less than $250. Prices will be cheaper straight off Yahoo Auctions Japan, but that takes effort.

[Rudolph]

On 3/28/2021 at 4:04 PM, Redneckerz said:

Steve Jobs upon his return shot the entire machine down because it was not profitable. So much for that. Ironically, the Apple TV does much of what the Pippin tried to do all the way back in 1995.

I am not very familiar with the Apple product line myself. Is the Apple TV a game console now?

[Redneckerz]

24 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

I am not very familiar with the Apple product line myself. Is the Apple TV a game console now?

It is, a casual one.

[Rudolph]

Uh. If Apple is getting serious about getting into video games, then I hope they bring Marathon back. 

 

Doom is all the rage again after all and Bungie is not doing Halo any more. Also, in this post-Portal, post-Dark Souls era, you would think Marathon's subdued, more cerebral approach to storytelling would be most welcome.

[Dark Pulse]

21 hours ago, amackert said:

I owned a Pippin for a couple of years. It's a neat system. Very heavy, seems well built. The controller is one of the goofiest I have ever had the pleasure of using. VGA out is a really nice perk, giving you some nice video quality.

 

Not a lot of reason to own one unfortunately outside of collector's purposes, as it's light on real games (it seems edutainment was what the majority of its software lineup consisted of). The ones that are decent can be played elsewhere (Shockwave, the Marathon games, etc). I did own a game called Tropic Island Pinball, basically a port of a Mac game by the same name. It was good but you kind of have to be a pinball fan for that one.

 

It's especially not worth owning these days with the prices rising. I checked a few weeks back and I believe it costs anywhere from $400 to $600 now to acquire one of the basic Atmark versions. It was a bit different years ago when you could get new-in-box ones for less than $250. Prices will be cheaper straight off Yahoo Auctions Japan, but that takes effort.

When it comes to Mac games, I definitely remember Apeiron. But I doubt that you could get that to run on a Pippin.

 

EA 3D Atlas would've been damn neat on the Pippin though. And actually fit in real well with its edutainment focus.

[[McD] James]

11 hours ago, Rudolph said:

Uh. If Apple is getting serious about getting into video games, then I hope they bring Marathon back. 

 

Doom is all the rage again after all and Bungie is not doing Halo any more. Also, in this post-Portal, post-Dark Souls era, you would think Marathon's subdued, more cerebral approach to storytelling would be most welcome.

 

I really can't see modern audiences taking any interest in Marathon. 

[Rudolph]

5 hours ago, [McD]James said:

I really can't see modern audiences taking any interest in Marathon. 

Even if they take the Doom 2016/Eternal route? 

 

Heck, you could say the relationship between Doomguy and Samuel Hayden is very reminiscent of the Security Officer and Durandal. And given how people loved Portal's GlaDOS, they might fall in love with basically every single thing Durandal has to say - especially if he is given a good voice actor.

 

Quake Champions: Doom Edition did a convincing job already in that regard: 

 

Edited March 30, 2021 by Rudolph

[[McD] James]

3 hours ago, Rudolph said:

Even if they take the Doom 2016/Eternal route? 

 

I do not see this working. 

[Rudolph]

2 hours ago, [McD]James said:

I do not see this working. 

Why do you think that is? Do you believe the era of the Doom killer is over?

[[McD] James]

1 hour ago, Rudolph said:

Why do you think that is? Do you believe the era of the Doom killer is over?

 

Marathon is a very niche franchise to begin with and reimagining it as a Triple-A, ultra-violent FPS game makes about as much sense as rebooting Syndicate as a FPS. 

[Rudolph]

10 hours ago, [McD]James said:

Marathon is a very niche franchise to begin with and reimagining it as a Triple-A, ultra-violent FPS game makes about as much sense as rebooting Syndicate as a FPS. 

Did they not do that already, though?

 

EDIT: Wait, they did! According to Wikipedia, at least, it seems to be a decent game, actually, even if it ended up being a commercial flop - although I have to wonder if the latter is the result of a troubled development and Electronic Arts marketing the game poorly.

Edited March 31, 2021 by Rudolph

[Doomkid]

[Redneckerz]

2 hours ago, Rudolph said:

Did they not do that already, though?

 

EDIT: Wait, they did! According to Wikipedia, at least, it seems to be a decent game, actually, even if it ended up being a commercial flop - although I have to wonder if the latter is the result of a troubled development and Electronic Arts marketing the game poorly.

I have that game for the X360. Its actually pretty good, and also pretty good looking - It uses Beast lighting, the same that was used in Mirror's Edge. Except they didn't use Unreal Engine 3, but their own Starbreeze Engine.

 

Additionally, i did some diggin in the Pippin (That came out wrong). With the bootloader now unlocked and 8 MB ram versions being present and also being able to run Mac OS 7.5.9 i believe, i wanted to see what games technically should be possible to run on the machine. So i went through Macintosh Repository and Macintosh Garden and in terms of it, here is what i found that might run:

• Doom/Doom 2/Final Doom/Ultimate Doom
• Hexen/Heretic (Possibly. Haven't yet found requirements yet)
• Havoc (3D shooter with texture mapping by Reality Bytes, can also run on 68040 processors)
• Terminal Velocity (Requires Power PC and 8 MB ram)
• Damage Incorporated (Marathon 2 engine based games with RTS elements)
• ZPC: Zero Population Count (ditto)
• Prime Target (Mac Exclusive. Requires a Power PC with 33 Mhz and 4.6 MB ram, so could even run on a stock Pippin)
• Descent (Requires 8 MB. Descent 2 is also for Mac, but requires 16 MB ram, and only dev-kit Pippin's have this kind of amount.)
• System Shock (Requires 8 MB ram and a 80 Mhz PowerPC, but who is to say it can't run on 66 Mhz? It supports the MacOS that Pippin can handle atleast)
• Marathon scenario's (Dies Irae, Marathon Red, etc)
• WolfenDoom collection (Including Astrostein 1-3 and basically the complete Laz Rojas collection)
• Batman Doom TC (Basically standalone, just needs Doom2 IWAD)

Sadly i cannot test this, but if possible, and at the resolution of the Pippin (640x480), this could basically highlight PS1 like software rendered graphics, at N64 Expansion Pak resolutions (640x480). All because of the PowerPC processor.

 

1 hour ago, Doomkid said:

This is so lame, but i had to laugh :P

[Rudolph]

5 minutes ago, Redneckerz said:

• Damage Incorporated (Marathon 2 engine based games with RTS elements)
• ZPC: Zero Population Count (ditto)

Never heard of those. I guess Bungie really tried to be Apple's Id Software!

[[McD] James]

I can't personally comment on whether or not the Syndicate reboot was any good (most reviews I've read were very negative), but it's to be expected that it would've been a massive flop. Modern audiences won't have any idea what Syndicate even is, and fans of the original (including myself) won't have much interest in a reboot that completely eschews everything that made the original game a cult classic. 

[Redneckerz]

2 hours ago, Rudolph said:

Never heard of those. I guess Bungie really tried to be Apple's Id Software!

Marathon 2 was widely licensed for multiple games and also had a Windows 95 version. Marathon 3 did neither of those things, but the M2 tech was given out like candy to some developers and some very interesting titles were made with them.

 

I'd love to see someone with a 8 MB Pippin test those games out and see how they perform. Perhaps the Pippin could have been a competitor to the PS1/N64, atleast graphically.

[Rudolph]

1 hour ago, [McD]James said:

I can't personally comment on whether or not the Syndicate reboot was any good (most reviews I've read were very negative), but it's to be expected that it would've been a massive flop. Modern audiences won't have any idea what Syndicate even is, and fans of the original (including myself) won't have much interest in a reboot that completely eschews everything that made the original game a cult classic. 

Both System Shock games were cult classics too, though; in fact, for the longest time, it was not even possible to play them legally, yet BioShock sold like hot cakes, so again, this might be more of a marketing failure than a game design one. I even seem to remember reading about Halo originally being intended to be Marathon 4, until Bungie decided to turn it into a separate product. Come to think of it, I find it rather ironic that the studios behind what was Apple's answer to Doom went on to make what ended up becoming one of the biggest first-person shooter franchises ever... for Microsoft.

 

Anyway, Marathon was rather violent even for its time; it may have not gone as far as featuring impaled and hanged corpses, but both friends and foes would produce a copious amount of gore when killed. And then there were those oftentimes traumatic encounters with the Simulacrums... So yeah, I can very well see a triple-A sequel to Marathon done in the style of Doom 2016/Eternal happening.

Edited March 31, 2021 by Rudolph

[Alexo]

There is a reason people often overlook the pippin.. its one of the worst selling electronic devices in this history of gaming. Less then 85,000 made. If you have a working one, your set for life on "Geeky things I didn't know I could start conversations about".

That controller tho... a trackball? LOL

[Rudolph]

@Alexo What bothers me is how I managed to go all my life without hearing about it, yet even I know about the Virtual Boy and even the fucking CD-I.

 

Heck, I even know about the Halcyon, thanks to H.Bomberguy!

[DooM Bear]

On 3/29/2021 at 5:24 AM, Redneckerz said:

Found another video which shows that, in fact, Pippin playable of running Doom, if you just ran it windowed:

 

 

 

 

My good god... those load times XD

 

I don’t think I’ve ever seen DooM run so poorly! Not even back in the day when it first came out.

 

I’m not sure if I should be impressed that the little machine can run it at all or cry because they massacred my boy :-P