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I can, but unfortunately they went with the "trendy" spelling of N-Gage, which to me sounds like a reference to a size of miniature railway track.

Currently I am addicted to a game called 'reset generation' which you can play on your nokia or online http://resetgeneration-site.arena.n-gage.com/

You play against 3 players who all have the goal to steal each others princess, they mix the game play up by you having to lay a path using tetris bricks to the other castle. Also there are 10 classes so each character plays differently.

So if you get the last princess then you win.

However since I play not so much online but against AI players I try to survive as long as possible. I do this by eliminating all but 1 player, then I make sure the playfield is only covered with my tiles which limits the movement of my adversary. At his time the ai player mostly gives up, however sometimes wierd stuff happens like chickens turning into zombies or just giant monsters appearing destroying everybody.

Unfortunately that's not a phone. The only open phone (openmoko) has 2 buttons : power and aux. Not quite enough for a good game experience.

I keep wondering why this is so hard. Nokia's 5500 and 6820 have such useful and quick keyboards. Nokia Ngage is a freaking game console (didn't sell all that well though), and has lots of phones supporting it.

Nothing open source though. An ngage-style-controls phone with a few emulators, and a large screen ebook reader (perhaps simply by combining a pico projector and a screen flipping up or something*). Something that can run nes, snes, sega megadrive, and n64 would certainly cover all I want (psp games and the necessary controls for those would be a great bonus). And, of course, a pdf reader and some storage slot that isn't limited to 2 gigabyte.

* yes it wouldn't work well in direct sunlight. You don't get much of that up here though, besides you won't find me outside all that much either.

Agreed, Idea's are really dime a dozen, I infact use the same phrase to my students ( I work at The Academy of Interactive Entertainment ) fobsta has an uphill battle, pitching to developers is almost pointless as very few have the cash to make anything themselves and if they do its going to be someone at that companies baby. Developers are just guns for hire. So pitching to a publisher is the way to go, fobsta has stated he was a working demo/prototype (they are always rough) and a trailer. My question is, by trailer do you mean Visualisation of segment of gameplay or Selling the story. Having a smooth, polished concept video of how the final game make play, look and feel helps and it will smooth off the rough edges of the prototype. As the parent said NDA's are the way to go, I am a little less cynical on what they are worth. NDA's seem to be well respected and honoured within the industry so find a template NDA and adjust it for your needs.

That said it is a large uphill battle, Publishers are the ones with the money but I would not know where to start to get a publishers interest, and getting yourself heard through the sea wannabe teenager game designers is going to be virtually impossible. You could try venture capitalists but I expect they would not fund someone who has very little/no professional game development experience. Remember only about 1/3rd of games actually make money, it is very high risk.

There is no quick fix for your problem. From what I can see there are 2 ways to go are, strip your game to its very core fun, as simple as can be but is still your game, no feature creep at all. Make a demo, submit it to the Indepedant Games Festival, if it is really good it will be picked up (Look at Narbacular Drop/Portal and The Blob). If the game is small enough, maybe try and produce something for the Nokia Games Innovation Challenge or keep an eye out for other similar competitions. You could try and go solo, like Introversion with Uplink, Darwinia & Defcon again if the idea is small enough, but you might have to find yourself a couple of good friends who are willing to starve.

Yeah, it's really a disaster when it's impossible to find a new Xbox 360 except on ebay. I think you need to be reminded about what a "complete and total disaster" actually is.

Let me put something in perspective for you. I was playing a Half Life mod called The Specialists a few days ago. My roomate looked up at what I was playing and asked me if I was playing Halo. How is that for brand recognition...and in only a few years no less. The only complete and total disaster here is your mind when you finally realize that Micorosft is making waves in their gaming division, and they're not going away anytime soon.

So read from other news sites that are paid to write glowing, positive reviews of the piece of turd that is the 360?

How is this better than the page after page of Linux-is-awesome, Micorosft-sodomized-my-firstborn-son morons who couldn't string together a constructive argument to save their life getting modded +5 insightful's left and right with rhetoric and terrible arguments. That's just as deceptive, if not moreso because their opinions are being "validated" by invisible moderators who are all drawn from the same crowd. Just because the mainstream press's bias towards Micorosft is bad doesn't mean that Slashdot's anti-Microsoft bias is any better.

A shame, though. I was looking forward to the Rifts game. I don't own an N-Gage, but if the Rifts game became popular I might have purchased one. Without continued support for the platform I doubt I will invest, though. Rifts URL: http://www.n-gage.com/rifts-promiseofpower/

Civilization is coming to at least N-Gage soon:
http://www.n-gage.com/en-R1/games/gamedata/civiliz ation.htm

just grepped the video link from my logs:
http://www.n-gage.com/e3/video/videos.html?ID=9

I remembered that there was a promotional video about upcoming n-gage games and that there was a shot from civ2 there... And so here it is, mobile version on civ: http://www.n-gage.com/en-R1/games/gamedata/civiliz ation.htm

I do however agree that there isn't a huge growth potential for the PSP, because I don't see where the market is for a 250$ portable game player.

10 Great Things About the N-Gage (not the N-Gage QD)

1. Plays MP3s.
2. Runs the popular Series 60 OS, for which many non-N-Gage-specific apps are already available.
3. Synchronizes built-in PIM software with Mac OS X (iSync) and Windows (Intellisync).
4. Built-in FM radio.
5. Supports on-line play with built-in GPRS radio.
6. Available used for about the same price as a Game Boy Advance SP.
7. Memory expansion with widely-available albeit slow MultiMedia Cards.
8. Includes software that lets me surf the web and check e-mail using the built-in modem.
9. Supports Bluetooth, letting me use a cordless headset instead of Sidetalkin'.
10. Has a built in Media Player, which supports not only MP3s (#1) but also video clips and streaming media.

There, that wasn't too hard. Maybe I should put it on a web page myself and submit it as an article!

To a certain degree, it may be worth it to the company. As players are loath to leave something they already payed for I would imagine.

So, if you can grab the impatient players early, they are more likely to stick it out with your game rather then cancel their subscription on the first game to start over at a new one.

But then you have the examples of products that completely screw up their initial release, only to get it right much later. And are kicking themselves the whole time.

To a certain degree, it may be worth it to the company. As players are loath to leave something they already payed for I would imagine.

So, if you can grab the impatient players early, they are more likely to stick it out with your game rather then cancel their subscription on the first game to start over at a new one.

But then you have the examples of products that completely screw up their initial release, only to get it right much later. And are kicking themselves the whole time.

IF you look at the n-gage just right, doesn't it sort of resemble the Goatse hello.jpg?

This picture of the n-gage shows what I'm talking about. (Don't worry it's really a picture of the n-gage. I'm not that bored today)

Thanks to Turdy for this one

Wow. I thought you were joking. Anybody want to guess how long until they put "difficult to remove game cartridges" or "narrow-screen color LCD" on their feature list?

DS Has wifi, not the BT.

Hey, they fixed the game switching process too -- the carts hot swap in a top mounted slot in the new model.

Now all they need are games... and a marketing department that has never heard of 'xtreme' sports.

I do believe they did. The new N-Gage QD is a plain old front-talkin' phone. The n-gage.com site even cites the "non sidetalkin' design" as one of the features of the new version.

Perhaps I am being trolled, but hey... sometimes you gotta bite.

BTW, EPOC isn't exactly dead.

And the games most played on mobile phones? 80's style arcade games. When you are waiting for a bus, or idling away a few minutes of break time, you don't want anything more involving.

---

Your comment about peoples wide FOV is true, but only applicable to FPS and other 3D games. But those sorts of games are not what the mobile phone user typically wants to play. They are too immersive and time demanding. If you want to work your way though Quake X, you'll probably do it on your console or PC.

If Nokia had been smart enough to launch the N-Gage with beefed-up versions of these sorts of games, then your argument would hold water. But instead, the initial N-Gage lineup contained at least: 2 3D games (Tony Hawk and Tomb Raider), 2 sidescrollers (Sonic and Pandemonium), 1 FPS (Red Faction), and only ONE puzzle game (Puyo Pop, which was poorly ported; the indistinct colors ruined the gameplay). Your argument makes even less sense when you take into account the fact that the current N-Gage Lineup contains a new Splinter Cell sidescroller and a Rayman sidescroller, but only three puzzle/arcade games, which are Puyo Pop (still crap, I'd imagine), Puzzle Bobble, and Super Monkey Ball. And Super Monkey Ball's presence on that short list depends on how the N-Gage version actually plays.

If Nokia had followed your very logical strategy, they might have done a lot better. Instead, they decided to go for console-style games on a decidedly old-fashioned and inappropriate vertical screen, which won them a a thumbs-down across the board from magazines like Electronic Gaming Monthly.

Nokia's Official site is here

More pictures and information at http://www.n-gage.com/qd

Actually, Nokia is promoting the use of MAME on its N-Gage site.

-Russ

From the press release:

all supported by strategic consulting and professional services ( Novell Ngage(SM)).

Ngage is a service mark of Novell, Inc.

I thought Ngage was a handheld taco-phone-game-system-thing from Nokia.

Too bad you have to be an "authorized N-Gage developer" to program in C/C++. With all the competition in the market, they need all the help they can get.

From the source:

N-Gage(tm) supports two different game styles: downloadable titles and rich games distributed on MMC cards.

Downloadable titles for N-Gage are developed in Java(tm) MIDP in the same way and with the same tools used to develop downloadable games for any other Series 60 Platform device. You do not require authorization to develop downloadable games for any Series 60 Platform device.

Rich games are programmed in C++ for Symbian OS. They are multiple megabytes in size and are sold at retail on memory cards. Rich games are developed using an N-Gage SDK that extends Series 60 Platform. Access to the SDK and details about the specific extensions available in the SDK are provided only to authorized N-Gage developers. The SDK is required to produce MMC cards compatible with N-Gage.

I don't think it is quite dead yet. Nokia have just released a phone/handheld game thingo called n-gage which uses bluetooth to play local area multiplayer games. Sounds like it's still ticking to me.

A PDA/Phone might help but the holy grail would be a HD-based PDA/Phone/Music Player.

Try the Nokia N-Gage

This could be a good move here, Palm OS is one of the easiest development platforms in widespread use. It has also prooven its self in the handy market through the treo line from handspring. lets just hope it doesn't turn out like some of the Bad Implimentations of a handy/gaming system.

when this thing was first announced, there were a lot of naysayers, "Nintendo rules the market, and it's going to be hard to beat them." but these were some of the same comments that were being made in 1995 when the PSX was introduced. the specs on these thing are unbelievable.

the reason Sony does as well as it does in the videogame market is because it tries to find out what it's competitor does well, and improves upon it. I'm not saying this is going to be a GBA killer, (price is going to be a big factor) but it looks as if there is finally going to be a viable GBA competitor. (N-Gage eat your heart-out.)

but as we all know, it all comes down to software. personally, I'd love to be able to play Vice-City whenever and wherever I want.

Mike

I predict that its spiritual successor will be Nokia's new handheld gaming device + cell phone, the N-gage... although I guess no matter who wins, it'll be the "Big N", hehe

With the emergence of smaller form factor PCs like the oqo it really does not seem SO far fetched that MS might introduce a handheld gaming system.

However, it seems that absolutly everyone is entering the market including Nokia and sony.

Does MS really want to fight it out with sony on the handheld platform, when they have been utterly beaten on the console one?

Regardless, since it would probably be based on x86 hardware, it might make an excelent portable linux system ;)!

Sony's sort of on the right track by not making a GBA clone, but what the handhelds really need is wireless.

Nokia's upcoming N-Gage has Bluetooth built-in, so I think it's pretty likely that Nintento will do the same thing for the next Gameboy. Now let's just hope that they will make them somewhat compatible.

It is sometimes very inconvenient because some of us do need more than one phone due to business use. You wouldn't want anyone caling on your private number, so you give everyone your business mobile number. That way, when your business cell phone rings at 2 am you can safely ignore it, while if your private phone rings at 2 am you know something is amiss. At least that's how most people do it in my country.

Add to those two cells a PDA, and you'll get one hell of a mess to carry around with you all the time. With THREE devices to carry, you'll bound to misplace one of them eventually.

Personally I love this kind of phones, the ones that combines a cell and a PDA. This will bring my total count of device luggage to two. If only the P800 can manage two SIM cards then I'll be more than happy to get that. Paired with the bluetooth headset, it's perfect.

So far there's a hack floating around that lets your small nokia 8210 (I think it's called 8290 is the US, not sure) to manage two SIM cards. It's quite a popular hack here.

This P800 could actually be useful, while some of Nokia's new phones are just plain ridiculous and looks more like a knee-jerk reaction to the P800 or Treo to fight for market share.

After all, I quit buying Nokia after some bad experiences with their marketing tactics that more and more looks like Microsoft with their selling a new untested handsets that crashes often, and gradually improving the ROM every month or so. This is a PHONE we're talking about, for God's sake. I don't want to lose all my contact numbers and have to pay for the software upgrade everytime Nokia screws up. Since T68 was released, Nokia was all downhill.

http://www.n-gage.com/n-gage/gd_tech_spex.html

Some random quotes:
- Full email support (IMAP4, POP3, SMTP, MIME2)
- Tri-band EGSM 900/GSM1800/GSM 1900
- Bluetooth
- Slave USB 1.1. for digital music download from PC
- 64 MB memory card for music

http://press.nokia.com/PR/200302/890630_5.html

Usage times:
- Games up to 3 - 6 h (depending on game type)
- Talk up to 2 - 4 h
- Standby up to 150- 200 h
- Music up to 8 h
- Radio up to 20 h

Check the developer's page. There's a freely downloadable SDK.