They're re-releasing licensed Nuon games now and I do not understand the collector market

Songbird productions is rereleasing Tempest 3000 for the Nuon in limited quantities.

Even though Giant Bomb is full of video game enthusiasts and old people there's a good chance you've never heard of the Nuon. It was, essentially, game playing hardware that was included in certain DVD players in the year 2000. It could also enhance certain features on actual DVDs. It was a massive flop, only like 6 games were produced, only a few DVDs used the enhanced features, and a lot of people who did own the machines didn't even know they played games or have controllers for it. Tempest 3000 is arguably its best game but is just a slightly modified version of Tempest 2000, and is mostly forgotten in favor of that game.

Now they're putting out new physical copies of Tempest 3000 and...why? Does anyone have Nuon nostalgia? How many people actually have a Nuon? For how many is it anything other than a conversation piece? If it is a conversation piece is a 2024 re-release of a game for it really that impressive to have? It's just such a weird thing. Who is this actually for?

I'd understand porting Tempest 3000 to modern systems just for preservation of a different version of a somewhat important game (Tempest 2000) or for inclusion in the recent Llamasoft archive by Digital Eclipse, but who wants a physical version of this Nuon game? It seems more and more physical re-releases or flat out new game releases for old systems are happening and while I kind of get wanting a new NES game just for nostalgia's sake (though personally I have no interest) this is the Nuon. THE NUON!

How long until we get Virtual Boy rereleases? 32X?

Who are the people who are buying these things in 2024 and why? I am genuinely curious.

So, there's an odd precedent to this. Songbird's niche is re-releasing video games on repro carts for consoles associated with the demo scene as well as consoles that have open source OSs. They primarily were known for releasing games for the Jaguar on repro carts. In that case, long story short, Atari made almost every single one of its console and PC OSs open-source. This started in 1999 when Habro released the patents for the Jaguar into the public domain and Atari even officially endorses the BigPEmu Jaguar emulator which was painstaking made by Rich Whitehouse to coincide with the release of Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration. Between this and the fact the OS is entirely open-source, the demo scene for the Jaguar is shockingly in-depth.

Jaguar emulation isn't just "solved" playing games via emulators is the best way to experience the games and Atari encourages you to do it. Towers II: Plight of the Stargazer, one of the few RPGs on the Jaguar recently was released on repro carts last year.

@zombiepie: I think the Jaguar stuff is kind of cool, but I do think that the Jaguar and the Nuon are pretty different. The Jaguar is seen as a massive failure that booted Atari out of the console market, and it was, but it was a significant player in the market for a bit, with a lot of TV ads, more games than the 32X or the Virtual Boy, and some important and influential titles released on it. There are people with nostalgia for it, even if they didn't have it at the time. And of course the Atari name is very important and nostalgic too.

The Nuon did have some Jag ties but it was a total flop, and even most nerds don't remember it. Many people who had one didn't even know it was anything other than a normal DVD player. It was a totally different level of failure. Does Nuonstolgia even exist, and if so, why? I get why people want to own repro Jag games, it's symbolic of an era and possibly an era in their lives. The Nuon is, to me, closer to the Amico (though credit to VM labs they did actually get a product out and some games made, so maybe that's not fair.)

@bigsocrates: At the end of the day, Songbird isn't going bankrupt because of this. They understand the retro demo scene and usually only manufacture repro carts for things after they get enough guaranteed pre-orders. Also, with Tempest 3000, there is an almost cult-like mystique to the game as it is considered the best game of the Nuon platform.

@zombiepie: I'm sure Songbird will do fine because they're limiting the print run to pre-orders. I doubt they'll lose any money. And I get why people are interested in Tempest 3000, though it seems to me that the best way to get that out would have been as part of the recent Llamasoft retrospective. I just don't know why anyone wants an official repro disc of a Nuon game in particular, but I don't really need to know.