NUON As Open Source Gaming Platform

jjustice writes: "About a month ago, Richard Miller, CEO of VM Labs, announced that "In the near future (I don't want to commit to a date until we are sure of it), we will release to the open development community the tools and documentation that were used to develop these titles - both the games and the movie enhancements. We will also release a few sample applications that can be freely downloaded from the Internet, burned onto CD-R discs, and run on NUON DVD players that can read CD-Rs. Currently only the N501 has this capability, but we anticipate that all future NUON based DVD players will read CD-R and DVD-R media." It's not Linux, but unlike Indrema, the boxes are available. And the technology may not rival PS2 or XBox, but he also says the latest version of the chip is 2-3 times the power of the existing model and cheaper to produce. Besides, I'll support any platform with games from Jeff Minter." No use for all those electronics going to waste, eh?

Comments

Nuon to play DVD movies

[Spootnik]

I had an opportunity to play T3K on a DVD player with the nuon chip at the last E3 in LA with none other than Jeff Minter. T3K didn't seem too hot though but it wasn't really finished yet. I still prefer the Jag version myself. As for nuon, the other titles I saw on it weren't that impressive but I don't think it's targeted as being a killer gaming platform but rather an inexpensive add-on to DVD players and the like that can support some cool graphics and multimedia.

The N501 sounds like a nice enough deck. It has the new "expanded" VLM and supports MP3 CD-R/RW. I will probably pick one up as an "extra" DVD deck and for T3K of course. I was in Best Buy last week, and they DID have some retail NUON presence as promoted months back. On impulse, I got a Logitech pad and T3K "while I still could", planning to pick up the N501 at its EOL pricecut.

Re:Nuon to play DVD movies

[alister667]

I know very little about NUON myself, but does anyone know is it feasable to get MAME going on this?

Last Caress?

[Schnapple]

Well, the deal with Indrema was it was a titanic notion from day one. Recall that console companies lose money on the hardware, so the notion of an "open source" console was specious at best - if you don't make money on the software and don't make that much (if anything) on the hardware, then where is your money made? Sure, Indrema's plan was to allow people to "license" their software, but come on..

However, NUON is mainly a DVD enhancement technology that "happens to" play games (as opposed to PS2, a game console that "happens to" play movies). There are few NUON titles other than Atari Jaguar sequels and the occasional CD-ROM shovelware (Myst). Therefore they can't convince DVD player manufacturers to place NUON chips in their systems. However if they make it an "open" console technology, then they can convince hobbyists and the like to make software for it. Then the increased demand makes for more of a push to put the NUON technology in DVD players, and NUON then has a more viable platform to encourage development for.

On the other hand, it could just be that NUON is on its way out the door and his handing off its source to people so that something can become of the technology eventually. They release the tools and such, then go out of business. Like DIVX players, NUON players become cheap and get snatched up by /.-ers.