Apple Computer Inc has now acknowledged the home multimedia player it is developing under its agreement with Japanese game and toy maker Bandai Co Ltd. The latest fruit from the company’s orchard is called the Apple Pippin; it includes a CD-ROM drive and is designed to enable users to play music, games and educational software when connected to a television set. Apple plans to license the system to vendors in different countries, starting with Bandai. Nippon Motorola Ltd is to supply the PowerPC microprocessor for the Bandai machine but it is not clear which version of the chip it is, although it is assumed to be the unannounced PowerPC 602. The Bandai player, priced at about $500, will be introduced worldwide in late 1995 as the Power Player.The company is aiming for world sales of 500,000 to 1m in the first year; it is being made by an unidentified Tokyo computer manufacturer. The machine runs a cut-down version of Mac OS and Apple says it is working with software developers to make slight modifications needed to enable Mac CD-ROM software to run on Pippin. Over 50 CD-ROM programs are promised at launch.
