In the mid 1990s Apple was wrestling with its identity, experimenting with products that stretched far beyond personal computers. Among the most unusual ventures was the Apple Pippin, a multimedia game console built in collaboration with Bandai. The device launched quietly, sold modestly and faded even more quickly. Yet within Apple’s archives and the recollections of former engineers exists the outline of something stranger, a rumored follow up system that some insiders later called the “Pippin 2.” The project never saw public light. It appeared briefly in planning documents, surfaced in internal presentations, then vanished with almost no trace. What remains is the phantom of a console that almost happened, a moment when Apple contemplated staying in the game industry before retreating completely.
The origins of the rumored Pippin 2 sit inside Apple’s early multimedia ambitions. When the original Pippin shipped in 1996 it embodied the belief that home computers, game systems and internet devices would merge. Apple licensed the platform rather than manufacturing it directly, hoping partners like Bandai would push the device into living rooms. But sales were underwhelming. The console’s PowerPC heart offered potential, yet the high price, limited software and rapidly shifting gaming landscape made it difficult to gain traction. Even as analysts declared the system dead on arrival, engineers inside Apple evaluated whether a successor with stronger hardware and a tighter focus might salvage the platform.
According to internal design notes reported years later by former Apple employees, early sketches for a second generation console centered on three goals: a faster PowerPC processor, integrated networking and expanded storage that would allow developers to build more complex games. Engineers explored the idea of a compact set top device powered by minimalist Mac OS components, capable of running educational titles, early web applications and simple 3D games. While never named officially, some referred to it casually as “Pippin 2,” shorthand for a system designed to correct the limitations of its predecessor.
Yet from the beginning the project struggled to find a home within Apple’s shifting priorities. The company was entering a turbulent era marked by leadership changes and financial strain. Licensing strategies were under review, and the consumer electronics experiments of the mid 1990s were being reconsidered. As one former engineer described it, the Pippin 2 discussions existed in “corridors rather than conference rooms,” acknowledged but never fully embraced. Notes from the period indicate that teams debated whether Apple should continue competing in a field dominated by Sony, Nintendo and the emerging Microsoft gaming strategy. Most agreed that Apple lacked both the software libraries and the developer momentum required to sustain a console ecosystem.
The project’s quiet disappearance coincided with the return of Steve Jobs in 1997. He arrived with a mandate to simplify the product line and refocus the company. Entire categories were cut to streamline operations. Devices like the Newton were discontinued, licensing deals were reevaluated and non core hardware experiments were phased out. The Pippin platform, already struggling, had no place in the new strategic vision. Whatever momentum the successor concept possessed evaporated as teams were reassigned and product proposals shelved. Apple insiders later said that if any prototype boards or early shells for the Pippin 2 existed, they were absorbed into broader hardware research or discarded as priorities shifted.
Today the rumored Pippin 2 sits between myth and lost engineering. No confirmed prototypes have surfaced, and Apple has never acknowledged the project publicly. Yet traces remain in interviews, patent filings related to set top multimedia devices and accounts from engineers who recall the brief consideration of a successor. Collectors who resurrect original Pippin consoles often marvel at how close Apple came to entering the game market more fully. The company’s later dominance in mobile hardware makes the abandoned console even more intriguing, a reminder of how different Apple’s trajectory could have been had its gaming experiment endured a few years longer.
The phantom launch of the Pippin 2 highlights a period when Apple was searching for direction and experimenting with ideas that today feel both ahead of their time and fundamentally out of sync with the company’s later focus. It also underscores how many products never reach the public not because they lack potential but because they do not align with the evolving identity of the company that imagined them. Somewhere in the unmarked corners of Cupertino’s history sits the outline of a console that never arrived, a sequel to a system few remember and a story that reflects the uncertainty and creativity of Apple’s most complicated decade.
Editor’s Note: This article reconstructs a composite narrative based on interviews, archival reporting and known historical context. No official Pippin 2 product was ever released, and details of internal discussions remain speculative but grounded in documented industry accounts.
Sources & Further Reading:
– Bandai and Apple Pippin Technical Documentation, 1995 to 1996
– Macworld Archives, Coverage of Apple’s Multimedia Strategy
– Interviews with Former Apple Engineers in Retrospective Publications
– “Game Over: How Apple Nearly Entered the Console Wars,” Retro Tech Journal
– U.S. Patent Filings Related to Apple Set Top Multimedia Devices, Mid 1990s
(One of many stories shared by Headcount Coffee, where mystery, history, and late night reading meet.)
