I love services or products that just sort of...show up one day, their logo starts getting used on things you never end up buying so you wonder what it is and then one day a decade later you can hardly believe they are still doing it and then at some point someone explains to you that it’s dead now and you finally learn it was...whatever it was.

Nuon type things. Divx, THX, General Midi, “Intel inside”...badges.

I actually have that Next Generation Magazine that he talks about in the beginning of the video. I'll scan it in when I get back to my PA office (where the magazine is--currently in NY) so you all can see.

I was flabbergasted about this Nuon and VM Labs when I read about it every month. Just kept thinking to myself "it's never going to work." Especially since their model appeared to be providing a technology so that a DVD player could also play games, rather than making a game console that could also play DVDs (which was what the PS2 and Xbox could do.) I appreciated Jeff Minter's optimism, but while his track record as a game designer was good, the hardware to which he hitched his developing wagon left a lot to be desired.

I remember later on hearing on the radio with some call in contests where they were giving away "Nuon-enhanced" DVD players back in the day. Never won one nor did I have any desire to get one. Problem is I could never for the life of me find any software for sale in any game store or electronics store at the time. And the Nuon just kinda faded away without so much as a wimper. Next Generation never really covered it beyond their development stage or any of the games when they were released.

Other gaming platforms that had some hype (at least I perceived some hype reading gaming mags of the time) but never made a splash or in some cases were never released:

Indrema Console - a linux based console which touted its "open development" platform meaning anyone could make whatever games for it. They folded before they could launch the console.

M2 Accelerator - a highly touted "upgrade" for the 3DO platform consisting of dual PowerPC processors which promised graphics capabilities on par with the then mind-blowing Sega Model 3 Arcade Board. Konami even made an arcade board based of the hardware and made games for it. The buzz for the M2 got a little bigger when Matsushita (parent of Panasonic) bought the M2 hardware from 3DO with the hopes of taking on its electronics industry rival, Sony, in the video game business with their Playstation and making the M2 a standalone console. Problem is they waited way too long and by the time they were planning on finally releasing it in 1997, Sony and Nintendo already established a huge foothold on the video game market. Matsushita threw in the towel just months before their planned release. The M2 hardware ended up being just something Matsushita used for interactive kiosks.

Phantom Console - basically a console that was a PC in a box with no removable media drive. All games were to be downloaded to its hard drive. Developer Infinium Labs touted that it would be able to play past, current and future PC games along with Phantom Console exclusives. The company kept announcing release dates, missing those dates and announcing other dates before finally giving up the ghost (phantom?)

Crazy thing is, you can kind of say they were ahead of their time with their download only platform as both Sony and Microsoft are offering versions of their current consoles with no media drive. Just download only!!!

Apple Pippin - before Apple had its resurgence with its colorful iMac PCs (and then took over the world with the iPod, iPhone and their line of laptops) they tried to get into the console/multimedia platform the Pippin (came in two flavors the "@mark" and "@world" with one being a more standalone console and the other being a lot closer to a PC with keyboard and planned printer add on) offering a gaming and internet browsing capabilities. I read about it in Diehard Gamefan magazine back in the day (around the time when Sony and Sega were about to release the Playstation and Saturn) with some bit of hype as it was being backed by Bandai. Problem is they waited too long and the hardware they finalized the console with was outdated and by 1996--like with the M2--Sony and Sega already had their consoles out and battling with Nintendo also releasing the N64 that year. It actually was released, but it sold HORRIBLY and was quickly abandoned.

I could go on, but those are the ones that stand out most for me.

It’s sad that there are so many more. These things were usually based on one single bad idea and then, after years and years and $$$ they abandon it because of unresolvable issues with the original idea.

Just because you liked video games as a kid and now you’re a 40 year old CEO doesn’t mean that everyone is a CEO like you. There are new 6 year olds every year and they still play $100-300 game systems. I like Apple but they mainly make (in the 90s) computers that cost thousands of dollars. They have little to nothing to offer a Japanese electronics company or a kid. When Bandai sold their own handheld (Wonderswan) it did better than their others consoles...probably because it was a cheap as ¥3800 depending on which version and when you got it. Because seriously...a MORE expensive 3DO wasn’t going to work? Who needed to be told that?!?

the pippin is more of a computer than games console. I still want one but they should worked on it more. LIke the CDTV or even CDi.

They made one that was intended to be more of a game console and another (I think the "@world") to be more of a computer with all the peripherals.

Rule of thumb: if it costs double or triple what the currently dominant systems cost it will fail. The Pippin, like the 3DO, was $600. I don’t know where these idiots think the money is going to come from...

They do realize that the Neo Geo was extremely well loved but only sold in super low numbers because of the price, right? We loved Fatal Fury Special so much we’d play crap SFC ports of it. A high price can limit even a good product so how did they come to be convinced than it wouldn’t be an insurmountable obstacle for mediocre edutainment crapola?

No. And i can speak about that : i collect games on Pippin (i have ~60 CD, 5 console, etc.)

Actually, the Pippin "Atmark" is beige, and it's the japanese version. The console come with a modem, and a pad (and many software)

The @World is the black version, for the US. The bundle is the same : gamepad and modem.

Bandai do not sell a version with keyboard and mouse, but there is many accessories : floppy drive, keyboard, faster modem, etc.

You can add a keyboard to two (identical) console, it's an option with a "graphic tablet" (like Wacom).

Inside, it's like a Macintosh, with Mac OS on every CD. There is many game for the console (Gundam, Dragon Ball, etc.), and a lot of educationnal software, for kids essentially.
The "computer" usage is very limited : there is a japanese word processor, and the other "software" are in the bundle. There is a browser (many version, with Netscape, IE 3, etc.), a word processor, a mail client and a "paint like" soft.

Like a super expensive Playdia, it sounds like.

So what ver of Mac OS is on there?

I can't seem to figure out the OS. It seems it would be 8 or 9 or some flavor X (10) seems too new but then its a powerpc. The cats dominated Powerpc (Leopard, Tiger Snow Leopard etc)

No, OSX is year 2000 stuff. It would be somewhere between 6-9.

So here's what I've been able to dig up on the Nuon from my issues of Next Gen.

1st is the article alluded to in the video from the November 97 issue:



Then I have another two page article from January 98:



Lastly another one page article on their supposed software partnerships (that apparently never actually came to be):

Thanks for clarifying. I always classified it as a console as it was the console magazines that I first read about it.

I still miss Mario and pray daily for vengeance on Project X...a system ahead of its time but only in name.