In an old page from Bandai’s website, an interesting detail about the Pippin is revealed: the number of test units.
A quick tip for reading and translating the page: the encoding is ISO 2022-JP. Using the usual Shift JS results in a garbled mess, just like Safari’s auto-detection.
We learn that 3,000 Power Player units were produced—the test version of the console. This number corresponds to production in December 1995, a few months before its official release in March 1996. This model appears quite frequently, whether in collectors’ hands or (mostly) in advertisements and various tests.
The document also mentions that 500 consoles were distributed in test markets (it’s unclear whether this refers to testers or developers) with different software. Among them were PipWorks (which I recently found), PipMusic (which I have never seen), and beta versions of common software for the console. The document lists a test version of the Internet Kit, Franky Online, and Music Island 1 (Pierre and the Wolf). Another beta occasionally seen from time to time is that of Tropic Island.
The figure of 3,000 test consoles is relatively high, considering that, unofficially, Bandai only sold about 42,000 units in total…
