Game Over: Goodbye DVD Gaming, We Hardly Nuon

📰 New article from Retro Handhelds

Game Over: Goodbye DVD Gaming, We Hardly Nuon

https://retrohandhelds.gg/game-over-goodbye-dvd-gaming-we-hardly-nuon/

Remember when we all thought, “What if my DVD player could also play games?” Yeah. Neither does anyone else—except maybe collectors who still have their 2003 Toshiba Nuon gathering dust next to their VCR.

Enter the Nuon: a sleek, DVD-playing miracle… that happened to have a GPU tucked inside like a secret crush. Developed by ex-Atari wizards, it was pitched as the ultimate one-box solution: watch Titanic, then play Tempest 3000—a dazzling, neon-drenched masterpiece that somehow survived inside this bizarre machine. The rest of the library? Think airplane seatback games, but with more plastic.

Problem was: no two Nuons were alike. Some had controllers. Others demanded you use the remote like a wizard waving a wand at a fireplace. And half of them couldn’t even run the games they advertised. Meanwhile, Sony’s PlayStation 2—cheap, powerful, and actually designed for games—was already taking over living rooms. The Nuon didn’t stand a chance.

Today, it’s a cult relic: 8 games, zero marketing muscle, and one glorious Jeff Minter gem trapped in a DVD player’s soul. A beautiful, bizarre footnote in tech history—and proof that sometimes, even brilliant ideas just… don’t stick.