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Nokia's Cellular GBA - The N-Gage
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."
Well, /. ate my long and insightful post so I'll just give you the gist of it.
Read a fucking book.
I have been pwned because my
Carl
Vote Libertarian
It's been delayed until fall. They didn't mention that did they?
"Not only is this critter capable of playing games, but other noticeable features include a cell phone, radio, and MP3 player."
It's also a flashlight, keyring, and garden hose!
TLoM: Nerds + DDR + Rednecks for the win!
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 ;)
Wow, the rate of technological progress these days is amazing. I mean, wasn't it just last year that everyone was excited about HO-gauge Nokias?
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
I *just* got a cell phone through T-Mobile, and the games suck. Oh, I love the phone otherwise, and I certainly love my plan so far.
I didn't even look at the games until after I bought the phone. "If I want games," I said, "I can bring along my Game Boy." Indeed, depending on where I'm going, maybe I'll just swap SIM cards and bring my GBA after all. At the very least, this'll be something fun to carry around. Price it right and I'll probably get one.
i don't see as it's the most useful, ground-breaking thing in the world, but it might just be fun!
...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.
And all from Sega. Puyo Puyo, Tennis and Sega Rally.
I cant find any specs, but this sounds like a cellular phone with a lame-o processor in it that will play very weak game-n-watch type stuff, like the T-Mobile, and not a serious competitor for GBA.
I'm assuming I cant find specs because they're thoroughly unimpressive.
I mean I might choose it over another cell-phone, but I doubt it will compete seriously with nintendo in the handheld gaming arena.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
EN-Gage!
Ah, that was a knee-slapper.
More seriously, what the hell kinda name is 'N-Gage'?
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
Nokia's N-Gage??? more like celda!
Y2K Compliant since the late 1890s
N-Gage specs
And back to Excellent for me!
I have been pwned because my
I dont understand why everyone is trying to jump on the all-in-one unit bandwagon. If I want a cell phone, I want a cell phone, not a bulky handheld that has 50 other functions and is 10 times the price of a standard cell phone. If I want something to play games on, Im going to choose something like a gameboy that has a large game base. I just dont think the mass markets are going to support and hold on to this type of all-in-one technology.
On the bright side, I guess these make cell phones less likely to be discarded - repair prices would probably be under the cost of a new phone unlike most standard cell phones today.
If someone can get a kernel, a bash shell, X11 and Tux Racer running on it I'll have one.
Omnis amans amens
1) nokia will probably not make any games. perhaps they agree with you ;-) As far as their APIs for gaming.. that has yet to be seen. You may be right. I have had no problems with their phone software however (using a 3360 and an 8890).
2) the n-gage can offer wireless internet play to any game, if it wants to. If it does this, it really has a chance. I do read, though, that it only uses local bluetooth multiplay! come ON, this is Nokia. Give me nationwide multiplayer or give me nothing.
However, I am concerned about the screen. Its square. If it were 1987 maybe this would be proper competition
ps, dont make fun of people with mental disabilities.
X has just announced that it has ported Linux to the N-Gage! No colour, phone or game support at this time....
The N-Gage FAQ says that it will support GSM/GPRS for multiplayer gaming in addition to Bluetooth.
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
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."
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
According to the specs on Gamepsot the batterylife is 3-6 hours. So in reality would be like 1-4 hours in real world usage. That is too damn short, considering that the Gameboy advance claims 30 hours on two AAs(only around 20 hours in realworld usage).
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Considering that you can buy GBAs for around $70 and pretty soon the new back-lit lithium-ion GBA SP for $99, the Nokia better be priced to competitively or the consumer would just go out and buy a PocketPC or Palm device; considering that Capcom, Sega,and Verant are already producing games for those platforms (like Everquest, 1942, Section Z, Colomns, Ultima Undrworld, Simcity, etc.).
Link to Gamespot;
http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/n
How is that different than stupid games? I've played some stupid fucking games in my life time too. I think the downfall of society is not the lack of reading, or the increase in video games, but rather the overall increase of stupid shit. But I really don't think it's an increase in terms of percentages. The percentage of stupid shit that's coming out now is about the same as back in the 50's, the turn of the century and so forth, the people just have different attitudes and values, thusly the same amount of bullshit can thusly have a greater impact on the overall intelligence.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
not even on my radar without nethack... :)
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
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?
Nokia N-Gage: First Impressions
Apparently you have to remove the back and take out the battery to switch games. Not very clever.
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.
The N-Gage is a Series 60 phone, like the 7650. That means it runs the SYmbian OS, which is a new generation of a PDA OS for Psion PDAs. It is a real OS, but optimized for phone-usage. Outside developers have already written the module to shut off the phone part while leaving other parts of the software running.
If this capability isn't included in the phone outright -- and I'll be stunned if it isn't -- I am sure you will be able to download it from places like handango.com.
Daniel Steel and Tom Clancy are surely the saviors of civilization.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Nokia has chosen not to release it in Japan because they don't support Japan's mobile phone protocol.
That alone is a good reason to assume that it will go the way of the Atari Lynx.
Which is too bad. . . the handheld game system market really needs a kick in the pants.
In fact, Novell came up with the name earlier than Nokia did.
Novell Ngage
Sigged!