The early 90s were pretty bleak for Apple. Employees were not comfortable with the leadership of then CEO John Sculley, and a lot of company money – a lot, perhaps – was tied up in R&D for projects that didn’t connect with the market or didn’t see the light of day. The company’s competitiveness was rapidly decreasing and something needed to change.
Meanwhile, 5,000 miles away, one of Japan’s largest toy makers was struggling to change for itself. For Bandai’s CEO Makoto Yamashina, his business – delivered to him by his father, no less – was to be a “children’s servant”, and these children wanted to play video games.
This is the story of how two totally different companies decided to work towards a common goal: to build a home video game console. And multimedia machine. This can also take you to the internet. It certainly wouldn’t be difficult to get all these things right in the 90s, right? Ultimately, history shows us that things have gone very badly for everyone involved, but as Apple continues its onslaught on our living rooms, it’s worth taking a look at the last time you tried.