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How Apple and Bandai tried selling dreams to kids and the internet to adults
The early 90s were pretty grim for Apple. Employees didn't feel great about then-CEO John Sculley's hands-off leadership, and lots of the company's cash -- too much, perhaps -- was tied up in R&D for projects that either wouldn't connect with the market, or failed to see the light of day. Meanwhile, 5,000 miles away, one of Japan's biggest toymakers was grappling with change of its own. To Bandai CEO Makoto Yamashina, his business was about being a "servant to children", and those children wanted to play video games. This is the story of how two strikingly different companies decided to work toward a common goal: building a home video game console.
Publishing for Apple's Pippin was a bit less curated than the App Store
Let me describe a game for you: Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead descends from Heaven and acid-trips his way through a parking lot, trying to avoid getting busted by the cops as he attempts to hug electric guitars. Sound like fun? Sure. Sound like something Apple would let onto the App Store in a million years? Probably not. But it turns out Apple wasn't always so choosy. Ars Technica recently interviewed Jason Rainbows, developer of Garcia's Guitars for the Apple Pippin, and the interview paints a picture of a much different (and maybe more lighthearted) mid-1990s Apple. "The Apple Pip-what?" some of you may be asking now, and you can be forgiven for that, because I never heard of it before a couple years ago, either. The Apple Pippin was Apple's aborted attempt at entering the gaming market in the mid-90s, running a version of System 7 on PowerPC hardware. As was typical of much of Apple's gear during that time, the Pippin was too expensive, too slow, had too little third-party support, and almost no one bought it. It was one of the first Apple products to disintegrate under Steve Jobs's laser gaze when he returned to Apple's top echelons, and as such the product is now little more than the answer to obscure Apple trivia. However, one interesting bit about the Apple Pippin is that Garcia's Guitars was actually packaged with the device. Apple doesn't include games with any of its iOS devices now, instead relying on users to discover them for themselves on the App Store, and it's hard to imagine the company highlighting a game like Garcia's Guitars today. According to Jason Rainbows, however, "Back then, if I called Apple and stayed on the phone (or bitched long enough), I'd eventually get Steve Jobs or The Woz on the line." In those days Apple was still fronting itself as a sort of "counterculture" alternative to the PC -- best exemplified by the later "Think Different" campaign -- so while Apple's tacit support for a game like Garcia's Guitars may seem surprising given the company's more "uptight" modern image, it was entirely in character in the company's earlier days. I never owned (or even saw) a Pippin, nor did I ever play Garcia's Guitars. But while it's nice to see Apple enjoying its top spot on the tech heap today, I'll admit that Ars Technica's interview with Jason Rainbows got me feeling a bit nostalgic for the company's earlier days. Apple had a bit more of a "devil may care" attitude back then, or at least it seems so today. Maybe it didn't do the company any favors when it came to the balance sheets, but I kind of miss the "mellower" Apple described in Ars Technica's article.
The Road to Mordor: Dungeon-running with Turbine
As we talked about last month, Turbine's toting around a double-barreled shotgun full of content that it's preparing to unload. While the biggest blast will undoubtedly be Lord of the Rings Online's third expansion, Rise of Isengard, the team is working hard to provide us with plenty to do between now and then. Part of that effort is directed at Update 3, which is currently scheduled to go live on May 23rd in North America and after June 1st for Europe when the LotRO Global Service takes effect and all of the accounts are moved under Turbine's purview. I eagerly sat down with Turbine's Aaron Campbell and Joe Barry for a play-through of Update 3's two new three-player instances, Halls of Night and Inn of the Forsaken. Both of these scalable instances will be available to a wide swath of players, and they feature mechanics and sights never before seen in the game. Also, they're wicked cool. So join me today as I take you on a brief tour of horrors and adventures beyond imagination. Has everyone used the restroom before we go? Are you sure? It's a long article; I don't want you leaving in the middle of it. OK, let's ride!
The Road to Mordor: Finding the Fellowship
It's not uncommon for new players to come to Lord of the Rings Online with the full expectation that they'll be treated to a front-row seat of the Fellowship's adventures. The movies, the books and even other Lord of the Rings video games certainly feature Aragorn, Legolas and Gandalf practically non-stop, which is why LotRO's approach to showing these famous characters takes some getting used to. Instead of bending the lore so hard it breaks by shoehorning players into the Fellowship itself, Turbine decided to have the players go on their own epic quests that sometimes parallel the main story of the books. In effect, we the players are on the periphery of the Fellowship, and the Fellowship is on the periphery of us. Sometimes we cross paths, sometimes our actions influence each other, and sometimes we simply go our separate ways. Still, players may get frustrated when they spend a lot of time in the game without seeing any of these major characters, wondering whether some of them even exist at all. This is complicated by the fact that these characters appear in different places relative to the player's own journey through the story. So if you've ever been curious where your favorite character is and how you can go on adventures with him or her, hit the jump and I'll hook you up!
Found footage: History of Apple in 2 minutes
Here's a great video assembled by applemctom that presents the history of Apple (more or less) in two minutes. There are some huge leaps in time and some obvious errors (Apple Mac II? MacIntosh?), but that's OK. It isn't easy to cram decades of history into 120 seconds. There's much nostalgia for old-timers like me, as the Pippin and Newton make an appearance. Though I still use my Newt, I've never had the pleasure of a face-to-face meeting with a Pippin. The dark days described in the video (the early 90's after Steve left) is exactly when I started using Macs in earnest. It's amazing that I stayed a customer after bloodying my hands on a 7100's beastly innards. The video ends with the introduction of the iPhone, so don't expect to see anything beyond that. Still, it's a bit of fun. Check it out.
Apple applies for gaming trademark
Our sibling site, Engadget, is reporting that Apple has apparently applied for trademark protection on a gaming device. The trademark in question would protect the word "APPLE" under the following circumstances: "toys, games and playthings, namely, hand-held units for playing electronic games; hand-held units for playing video games; stand alone video game machines; electronic games other than those adapted for use with television receivers only; LCD game machines; electronic educational game machines; toys, namely battery-powered computer games."Engadget also reminds us about Apple's recent patent filing of a touch gaming device. Could this mean that Apple is working on Pippin 2.0? Time can only tell. However, I wouldn't hold my breath, since Apple often randomly trademarks names and such. Original source: trademork.com
More "New Newton" rumors
What's more annoying than Chocolate Rain and the pointless Kid Nation uproar? The incessant "Apple is coming out with a new Newton" rumors.Here's one from 2003:"...There's good reason to believe that a jazzy new Newton II will be forthcoming, perhaps in January" (Yup, that's our good friend John Dvorak).Another from 2004:"...[A US company] 'approached Apple willing to buy [the] Newton and relaunch it. They are in ... negotiations with Apple...'"I think we all remember - and would like to forget - the iWalk.Today, AppleInsider is beating this decrepit, old horse. According to their "well-respected sources," a team has been very busy at Apple building a multi-touch handheld successor to the Newton. Sure. In other news, everyone who paid $7500 for a Twentieth Anniversary Mac will receive $100 Apple Store credit, OJ Simpson is Steve Job's personal hitman and the next AppleTV will play Pippin games.
PC World says Apple's Pippin is the "worst"
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]
Macintosh Portable, Pippen make PCWorld Worst tech list
PCWorld has compiled a list of the 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time. All the usual players are there; IBM, Microsoft, Real, and Apple. Apple?! Yes, that's right kiddies, Apple wasn't always firing on all cylinders like it is now.The Macintosh Portable clocks in at number 17, but only because it was 16 pounds, wouldn't run on AC power and cost $6500. Other than that, it was a great machine. Pictured above is the Apple Pippin, Apple's only attempt to enter to lucrative game console market, which comes in at number 22. It was slow, expensive, and had almost no titles.Any other Apple products you would add to this list?[via Scripting News]Picture of Pippen from Wikipedia.
