★ Featured Exhibit ★
Catalog record
27

Apple Bandai Pippin

We preserve disappointment.
It lasts longer.
Apple Bandai Pippin
27
Accession no.
27
Regret level
A low-cost computer, game console, and Internet appliance that cost $599 and excelled at none of them.
Collection color
#A7A9AC

★ Curator’s Notes ★

Apple designed Pippin as a Mac-derived platform, and Bandai launched the @WORLD in 1996 as a $599 game machine, multimedia computer, and Internet appliance. The Computer History Museum notes that buyers mostly compared it with much cheaper game consoles; Macworld points to the price, uncertain audience, and thin software library. It vanished in 1997, having successfully combined three products into no compelling product.

Sources: Computer History Museum · Macworld · Bandai launch release (archived)

Image: Evan-Amos / Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Apple and Bandai combined three product categories into one machine with no obvious customer.
Please do not clap.
Handle expectations with care.