NUON

[berzerk]

Anyone tried out one of these nuon game/dvd players? It seems to have had a lot of ex-atari workers working on it and has some atari related games made for it. Just curious if it is any good. thanks.

 

berzerk

[foxglove9]

I actually work for a company that makes DVD's and we work with NUON quite a bit. We have 2 players. The players themselves are nice, but as far as the technology goes...it's really weak and already outdated.

 

I have a bunch of Nuon only dvd games(no movies). The best example Tempest 3000 is the same as 2000 but the graphics aren't as smooth and doesn't flow as nice as the PSX version. The other games are nothing better than say Super NES or early PSX stuff. And then there are some games that make you cringe they are so bad.

 

The people at NUON are pretty nice, I hope it works out, but I don't see it happening.

[Gunstar]

quote:

---

Originally posted by foxglove9:

I actually work for a company that makes DVD's and we work with NUON quite a bit. We have 2 players. The players themselves are nice, but as far as the technology goes...it's really weak and already outdated.

 

I have a bunch of Nuon only dvd games(no movies). The best example Tempest 3000 is the same as 2000 but the graphics aren't as smooth and doesn't flow as nice as the PSX version. The other games are nothing better than say Super NES or early PSX stuff. And then there are some games that make you cringe they are so bad.

 

The people at NUON are pretty nice, I hope it works out, but I don't see it happening.

---

 

While I agree that the Nuon Technology is outdated (compared to the 128-bit systems), I've seen IronSoldier3, Merlin kart racing, Tempest 3000 and Freefall 2120 in action and they look slightly better than N64, maybe as good as early Dreamcast stuff to me. SNES and PSX quality? Just because you say that, I'm finding it hard to believe that you know anything about it at all...the stuff is a LOT better than PSX stuff, Tempest 3k is a LOT better than TempestX on the PSX! Plus, you buy the player as a DVD machine anyway, the game side is just a bonus...if you want a console, buy a console. Some other games look lame, but that's not the NUON's shortcoming, just the games!

[Gunstar]

quote:

---

Originally posted by foxglove9:

I actually work for a company that makes DVD's and we work with NUON quite a bit. We have 2 players. The players themselves are nice, but as far as the technology goes...it's really weak and already outdated.

 

I have a bunch of Nuon only dvd games(no movies). The best example Tempest 3000 is the same as 2000 but the graphics aren't as smooth and doesn't flow as nice as the PSX version. The other games are nothing better than say Super NES or early PSX stuff. And then there are some games that make you cringe they are so bad.

 

The people at NUON are pretty nice, I hope it works out, but I don't see it happening.

---

 

While I agree that the Nuon Technology is outdated (compared to the 128-bit systems), I've seen IronSoldier3, Merlin kart racing, Tempest 3000 and Freefall 2120 in action and they look slightly better than N64, maybe as good as early Dreamcast stuff to me. SNES and PSX quality? Just because you say that, I'm finding it hard to believe that you know anything about it at all...the stuff is a LOT better than PSX stuff, Tempest 3k is a LOT better than TempestX on the PSX! Plus, you buy the player as a DVD machine anyway, the game side is just a bonus...if you want a console, buy a console. Some other games look lame, but that's not the NUON's shortcoming, just the games!

p.s.-if your going by the demo disk version of Tempest 3k, it's not as good as the real thing...buy a long shot!

[Albert]

I played Tempest 3000 a bit at CES this past January and I thought it was pretty well done. I haven't played TempestX in some time, so I can't honestly say how it compares to that version. But it did seem pretty similar, maybe with even more "in-your-face" graphics (if that's possible!) It seemed pretty smooth to me, but then, I was on the show floor and had plenty of distractions.

 

I don't know how much NUON is selling their chip(s?) for, but it will only catch on with other manufacturers if it's dirt cheap. Most people probably won't go out of their way to buy a NUON-enabled player, especially since most poeple don't know what the heck it is. I would buy one if the price compared to traditional DVD players wasn't unreasonable, *and* it was an excellent DVD player.

 

I know NUON adds some cool features to DVD playback, although I haven't had a chance to play with that aspect of NUON yet. Maybe when I replace my aging Toshiba 3107 DVD player I'll investigate NUON players (if any are still on the market by then!) The Samsung DVD-N2000 player is pretty highly rated and can be had for under $200, which isn't bad. But since it doesn't have progressive outputs, I'd probably pass.

 

..Al

[mos6507]

They were originally going to market it as a game machine, using the DVD as a way to get people to become early adopters based on the DVD rather than the launch titles.

 

They were too late to market and the PS2 stole most of their thunder.

 

Now I think they realize that they won't even have perceptable DVD penetration so the games aren't going to arrive.

[foxglove9]

The company actually sends us every game for free since we work with them. I haven't gotten Iron Soldier, though maybe we have. We sort of stopped caring about their games at this point. I know for sure I have Merlin Kart, Tempest 3000, and Freefall as well as some other titles like Ballistic, Tetris and demo stuff done for my company. Freefall is quite possibly the worst game of the bunch. When we first started playing it at my job, we all started laughing at how poor the game is. Tempest X on PSX is possibly my favorite game on the machine and the nuon version just isn't as good(even with the joypad). The Kart racing game didn't seem that much better than Mario Kart racing. Ballistic was kind of fun, but there are no graphics to speak of.

 

I still stick with my opinions that the games on the machine are poor, but I encourage people to check it out themselves. I don't think it is marketed as a game machine anyway, which it shouldn't be.

 

It's true if a DVD machine is the same price with Nuon then it pays to get it, because maybe one day more DVD movies will be nuon advanced. But its been around about 2 years now and I still don't see much support anywhere for it.

[Albert]

It's interesting to see that several Jaguar titles have found their way over to the NUON, but it's too little, too late I'm afraid. I was just looking around on the NUON page and there are only 13 titles announced. Only four of those are available now, which seems rather pathetic given the amount of time the NUON platform has been available. Either it must be very difficult to develop for or there is virtually no interest in developing for it. And some of the games, like aMaze, Myst and Space Invaders XL certainly don't look like they'd take a lot of time to complete.

 

One of the things that hurt the Jaguar was lack of hardware texture mapping. Judging from the screenshots I'd guess that the NUON has this in hardware, although I doubt it's as fast at pushing full-featured polys as the Dreamcast and certainly not the PS2 (faster than the 2600, though). When it was announced I'm sure the specs were competitive, but far too much time has passed for them to market the NUON as a game machine. At this point it's an "Enhanced DVD player" that "also plays games!"

 

The NUON strikes me as one of those products that tries to do too many things and doesn't do any of them as well as a product that only does one of those things. If I want to play games I'll either use my PC or a dedicated game console (from 2600 up through the PS2). If I want to watch DVDs I'll use one of my two standalone non-NUON DVD players. Sure, the NUON adds some cool DVD playback features, but those features aren't nearly compelling enough for me to replace one of my other DVD players.

 

That's probably their biggest problem now. They can't really sell the NUON on games alone, and people who already have a DVD player aren't going to replace it just to get the NUON DVD playback features. And even for people who are buying a new DVD player, with so many choices available the odds are against NUON since they only have three players (two from Samsung, one from Toshiba) on the market.

 

..Al

[Ze_ro]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Albert:

It's interesting to see that several Jaguar titles have found their way over to the NUON, but it's too little, too late I'm afraid. I was just looking around on the NUON page and there are only

13

titles announced. Only four of those are available now

---

 

Sounds like a worthy successor to the Jaguar

 

Seriously though, it seems like a good idea. Although I'd buy it for the DVD player and get the games as an added bonus (Sort of like how people bought the PS2, and got a DVD player as a bonus). Hopefully this technology (Or something like it anyways) sneaks itself into our homes. It would be a good way to introduce non-gamers into the video game world

 

Of course, I already have a DVD player in my computer....

 

--Zero

[PeeknPoke]

Fuuny enough, I met Jeff Minter, the designer of Tempest 3000 on the Nuon, at the back in time LIVE event (For commodore 64 fans) and Tempest 3000 was playing on the large video screens in the nightclub there (It looked even better when I was drunk)

 

Jeff made the lightshow with the Nuon later that night and it was superb!!

 

Above:Jeff Minter doing the lightshow with the Nuon!Note the two controllers, one in each hand

 

 

Lee

 

[ 08-27-2001: Message edited by: PeeknPoke ]