Apple Pippin (Bandai @WORLD / Atmark)

The Pippin is the strangest product decision in Apple’s entire history. During the Steve Jobs interregnum (1985–1997), Apple ran a long series of “Mac OS derivative” licensing experiments — strip Mac OS 7 down to a subset, run it on a PowerPC 603e, aim it at the home console and multimedia markets. In 1995, Apple signed a licensing deal with Bandai: Apple designed the spec, Bandai manufactured and sold the hardware. On 28 March 1996, the Pippin Atmark launched in Japan at ¥64,800.

The positioning was “console + multimedia + online terminal” — three in one. It was bad at all three. As a console: no Apple-published flagships, no third-party commitments (a Bungie Marathon port was the rare bright spot), a derivative Mac OS that booted at PC speeds, and an awkward disc-shaped controller. As a multimedia computer: ¥64,800 bought a Mac LC-class derivative, but couldn’t actually run real Mac software (the OS was only a subset). As an online terminal: in 1996 the home internet-appliance market simply did not exist (Japan’s i-mode arrived in 1999, the U.S. AOL boom didn’t translate to a console form factor). A textbook case of “three weak halves.”

Commercially the result was catastrophic. Roughly 42,000 units sold worldwide — putting Pippin among the very worst-selling home consoles in history, below Sega 32X, Atari Jaguar, and Virtual Boy. Apple and Bandai discontinued the platform in 1997.

But the historical importance of Pippin lies not in how much it sold — it sold nothing — but in how its failure shaped Apple’s subsequent strategy. The first thing Steve Jobs did when he returned to Apple in 1997 was kill every Mac OS licensing program (Power Computing, Motorola StarMax, and the rest). Pippin was the most embarrassing case in that licensing strategy — the case Jobs could point to. Without Pippin’s failure, there is no Jobs-era allergy to “cheap derivative licensing,” and arguably no iPod-iPhone-iPad doctrine of total vertical integration: Apple designs, Apple manufactures (or directly contracts), Apple owns the experience top-to-bottom. Pippin is the inflection point where Apple turned from a software-licensor into a vertically integrated brand.