Re:NUON longevity... (Score 1)

It's kind of a complex history, but I'll try to break it down.

There were 3 NUON DVD players released in the US that play official NUON games. Of those, only one will play the homebrew software, and that's the Samsung DVD-N501. The other models were the Samsung DVD-N2000 and the Toshiba SD2300. RCA also released 2 DVD players with the NUON chip inside (The RCA DRC300N and DRC480N). The big difference in the two is that the 480N is progressive scan, but both players have lobotomized NUON features. Luckily both have the VLM intact, but lack the interactivity of the N501 version.

There were two models released in Europe, the Samsung DVD-N504 and DVD-N505. The N504 has controller ports and the N505 does not. Both have the ability to play the homebrew NUON games and the N505 can be hacked to add controller ports should you be able to find a set.

Samsung also released one NUON player to the Korean market, the N591 which featured an exclusive pack-in game based on the Crayon Shin-Chan cartoon.

All in all, the DVD players were on the market for 2-3 years but were never heavily advertised. They can still be found on eBay and Amazon occasionaly, along with games and controllers.

-Kevin