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Nokia's Cellular GBA - The N-Gage

Posted by chrisd on from the hope-it-has-a-better-backlight dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Hold on to your Game Boys, folks! It appears that the Finland cell phone manufacturer, Nokia, will be throwing in its lot in the handheld gaming industry with its N-Gage. Not only is this critter capable of playing games, but other noticeable features include a cell phone, radio, and MP3 player. Game companies such as Sega, Taito, and Eidos have already expressed support for it."

11 of 204 comments (clear)

  1. hack support? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    i think the big question will be how is Nokia going to be on supporting you and i, the folks without the dev kits, for writing the games. if they let us write some of the games and do emulators and stuff, they could have a huge hit on their hands... a gba emulator using bluetooth for zelda ;)

  2. My two biggest concerns... by CommandNotFound · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...are price, and battery life. Neither of which were addressed on this web page. If it's $200 and lasts three hours on a battery charge, then we've probably got another Lynx. (is that what is was called? There were a couple of those deluxe handhelds out in the early 90's)

    The GameBoy has survived because it's cheap and the battery life lasts forever (well, an impressively long time, at least). That, and the Mario/Zelda/Pokemon franchises.

    1. Re:My two biggest concerns... by raynet · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Maybe Nintendo will strike back and start to make GPRS gamemodules for GBA, that would be great. And I wouldn't be suprised if the next Gameboy would have some sort of phone technology, GSM or GPRS, inside.

      Best option would be that Nokia would make small black boxes with the phone stuff in it and then you could use bluetooth hands-free-set for calling people, PDA for surfing and pocket game console for gaming.

      --
      - Raynet --> .
  3. I was lucky enough to have a play with one by rcs1000 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I got to see one last Friday when the nice boys from Eidos came to my office, and I can say it is a lot more impressive than the GBA.

    Height- and width-wise, it's about the same, but it feels a lot slimmer, which was a surprise to me as I'd been expecting something like Nokia's ill-fated 5510. It also seemed pretty light.

    It also has a very nice high-res back-lit screen. It sure blew my GBA away.

    Now, this doesn't mean it'll win the handheld console war. There is the question of price: can it compete with a $100 GBA? And then there are game; Eidos, THQ, Sega and Activision are (reasonably) big names, but they are not Nintendo.

    That said, it will be useful indeed to see the Big N get some competition.

    --
    --- My dad's political betting
    1. Re:I was lucky enough to have a play with one by cgenman · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Few questions, maybe you can answer them.

      1. How does the buttons on this bad little boy stand up to the dual task of dialing and game playing? Did you find yourself hitting the wrong number instead of the raised button?

      2. Nokia mentions 3D capability, but refuses to list real tech specs in their tech specs section... or for that matter any real screenshots. How would you rate the 3D rendering capabilities you saw on this early model?

      3. I'm quite worried about the screen orientation. It seems all wrong for playing anything other than vertical shooters. How did the aspect ratio effect the play of Tomb Raider?

      Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about all of this. I love the promise held in the launch of any new console... and a Symbian-based console gets extra bounus points. But if the feel of the controllers and the screen is wrong, that could severely hamper acceptance.

      So allay my fears, if you would be so kind. Buttons? Screen? Rendering?

      --
      The ______ Agenda
  4. Cameras by Cyno01 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The cameras aren't that useful, but they're fun. My friend has one programed with visual caller ID, when it rings, the person whos calling's picture shows up if its loaded on the fone.

    --
    "Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
  5. No wireless peer-to-peer functionality by Wills · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It would be great if one of the handset manufacturers would make a true mobile phone with wireless peer-to-peer walkie-talkie-style communications. You could talk free of charge for as long as you like on your mobile phone to other users on your chosen frequency channel whenever they are within range of your handset. Unfortunately, Nokia's new handsets can't do this. Here's hoping...

    --
    Scroogle
  6. Re:It will fail. by nfg05 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Nokia has phones out right now that don't do this much and they certainly aren't cheap. They seem to love the niche market of "hey! look at me I dropped 500 dollars on my phone and check out all the bells and whistles" crowd with corporate money to blow. I'd say the chances of this being close to the level of GBA's cost and usability are pretty slim. The more features you try to pack into one device, the pricier it becomes and the quality of each feature with likely suffer as the company spreads itself thinner.

  7. 104 MHz should be enough by yerricde · · Score: 3, Interesting

    104mhz arm?

    Doom 1 runs at 120x120 pixels with a good frame rate on the 16.78 MHz ARM7TDMI processor in the GBA. If you want to see what even that slow speed (one-sixth of what the N-Gage has) can do, check out some of the GBA demos from Assembly '02.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
  8. Here's an actual evaluation of it by Syre · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Nokia N-Gage: First Impressions

    Apparently you have to remove the back and take out the battery to switch games. Not very clever.

  9. Likes and dislikes by eyefish · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Likes:

    - The bluetooth wireless gaming will be AWESOME (I can already imagine finding people on the streets, airports, bus, trains and playing with them with no cables).

    - Integration of gaming, radio, mp3, agenda, sound recorder, cell phone, address book and [limited] internet is a HUGE plus (will this be the future of PDAs?)

    - Ability to play Java games.

    Dislikes:

    - The screen resolution is a joke.

    - No camera.

    - No Palm OS compatibility.

    - Size (I'd have made the unit as wide as the screen itself, and then make the screen larger to the sides, and to save space have the joypad or the keypad slide out from underneath.

    Overall, if the price is right (under US$200) I'll buy it.