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In Defense Of The N-Gage
Thanks to IGN Wireless, who, not content with vehemently defending cellphone gaming in general, have decided to step up and tell us why Nokia's N-Gage is worth a second look. As they eruditely put it, "E3 was not exactly kind to Nokia and it's [sic] new N-Gage mobile gaming platform," and they go on to compare Nokia's phone and 'mobile game deck' to another neglected system: "A lot of it depends on whether or not gamers are willing to take chance on an unproven system, or whether they'll let hype from Sony's PSP or an improved GBA prevent them from taking the plunge. Which would be a shame, because that's what happened to the Dreamcast in the face of the PS2, and now everybody sits around and talks about what a great system it really was."
The analogy seems totally hollow.
Sega Dreamcast: The first of the next-generation 3D consoles to come to market. For the year or so it was the most powerful mainstream system on the market.
N-Gage: Underpowered. Underengineered. Lame.
Saying "go buy an N-gage because Dreamcast was cool" is putting the lid on the fishbowl after the horses have escaped.
"...that's what happened to the Dreamcast in the face of the PS2, and now everybody sits around a talks about what a great system it really was."
Except the Dreamcast actually was a good system. This article fails to mention some of the fatal design flaws in the N-Gage. Like this one: in order to change games, you have to take the back plate off the N-Gage, remove the battery, take the old game out and put the new one in, put the battery back in, and replace the plate again.
One thing many posters have ignored is the price of a GB SP + a good mobile phone, namly which is going to be ~$100-$200.
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
I've been a reader of IGN for years now, and I gladly pay the annual subscription rate. Their writing is generally top notch (compared to the competition), and the reviews impart an honesty I appreciate as a game junkie.
/. article, something about it seemed very contrived. I'm an optimist, and I'd like to think that IGN didn't take a payoff for this. If they had, I'd wager they'd have made a much better case for the platform. A more realistic view (imo) is that they're planning on starting a N-Gage channel. From day one, IGN has been extremely negative toward the system, but it's still gained support from a few well-payed-off developers. It's quite possible that IGN has identified the system as a legitimate contender worthy of daily report.
Upon reading this article however, I was surprised at the tone of it. I'm glad it ended up as a
Regardless of the reason, the article is poorly written and comes off as a bit of a showcase piece. I certainly hope IGN doesn't continue this trend.
If you could be anything you want, I'll bet you'd be disappointed.
Personally, I cannot take seriously anyone who suggests that one can only be enthused about platformers and remakes of 16-bit games if one looks at the era through "rosy glasses".
Personally, I think my hobby died with the rise of the PSOne, and I'm left with the Gamecube as the third place console, but the only one that puts out more than a handful of games that are of types I actually enjoy. I could care less about Tony Hawk and Tomb Raider.
And lest someone mod me flamebait, I'm sure both of those are great games. I know people who enjoy them, at least. But I've just never gotten into them. They don't feel like the games I grew up on. They feel like a different hobby to me. Some people made the transition from that hobby to current video games. Some people started with Tomb Raider, and can't figure out what it is I like so much about Zelda.
But for me, if that's the future of video games, I'll be over here with my emulator, thank you.
Philip Sandifer's academic website
I've had the unfortunate opporunity to use an N-Gage myself at E3. It's not a good game machine by any means. The Game Boy is a SPEED DEMON compared to this thing.
... take this. To use the handset (not a HEADSET) to talk on this phone, you hold it to your head like a taco, sideways. The top edge of the phone rests against your face, and you look like a freaking idiot.
... either there are kickbacks for selling these things that go right into the salesperson's pocket (and that's all you're going to be able to get them to talk about), or they simply won't care to deal with the hassle, and will pretend it doesn't exist.
It's not a good cell phone either. I don't know what the hell Nokia was thinking, but they threw everything they knew about cell phones out the window when they designed this thing.
You want an example? OK
The price will probably be a non-issue with subsidies, but they're expecting to have this thing selling in stores like Electronics Boutique and GameStop. This is going to go one of two ways
I'm betting on the latter.
Regardless, I've already got a Series 60-based cellphone (the Nokia 3650), and rumor has it that it can play the N-Gage games too. Probably not as comfortably, but it'll play.
Why is it the most ignorant posts get modded funny?
Having GONE to E3 I saw Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 running on the N-gage. Not some watered down thing. THE ORIGINAL in its 3D glory. This device is not underpowered for the market. Thats like saying the PlayStation was underpowered to compete with the SNES, because that is what we are comparing here for handhelds.
Your note about the Dreamcast does win the obvious award, but its irrelevent to the situation.
I'm not going to buy an N-Gage because I don't play handheld games, but your post is just not factually correct.
All gamers diss n-cage but I believe it can be seller because it's firstly a cellphone, and only secondly a games machine.
Which would be the main reason that 'all gamers diss n-cage[sic]'.
It will be sold in cellphoneshops, not gameshops, the buyers are not gamers but "average joes".
I don't know where you live, but around here it's just now becoming common for 'average joes' to buy cell phones at all, and the vast majority of them buy a plan, and get the phone for free (they don't buy phones). The phones that are given away for free are nowhere near the n-gage in terms of market price.
Cellphonebusiness is a massive market, and I believe very different from game business. i mean the ps2 has sold what 70 million(?) units worldwide, that's a lot, but nokia can sell the same amount of ONE MODEL. The best selling model has sold about 110 million units worldwide if I recall correctly.
Nokia (and most cell phone makers, really) keeps predicting that this or that new technology will sell more phones for them, but the simple fact is that their best sales figures come from phones that cost very little, if anything, to the end user. Nokia can sell 110 million units at $0-100, but can they do 70 million at $200-300?
SO gamers, when n-cage is finally released, u might be surprised to see how that piece of junk games machine beats gba's sales. It's got nothing to do with quality, because most people who buy cellphones don't even know what a game boy is.
I know one person that buys cell phones that are even close to the price range the N-Gage is looking at. He hasn't even heard of the N-Gage. On the other hand, a GBA SP costs $100, and I'm planning on picking up a second one when the black ones are released here in the US. As for 'most people who buy cellphones dont even know what a game boy is', I don't think you understand the high end cell phone market very well. Game Boys have been around for close to 15 years now, and most people in the N-Gage's target market either had one or knew someone that had one within 5 years of the original Game Boy's release.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
Why is it that since IGN is BIG, people assume it's corrupt and on the take.
"They don't give bad reviews"
Their last 3 scores from the major systems
Gamecube
Charlie's Angels - 4.0
NCAA Football 2004 - 9.0
Shrek Super Party - 3.8
Sonic Adventure DX Director's Cut - 5.0
Xbox
NCAA Football 2004 - 9.0
Star Wars: KOTOR - 9.5
Outlaw Volleyball - 8.0
Tetris Worlds Online - 4.8
PS2
K-1 World Grand Prix - 8.3
NCAA Football 2004 - 9.1
Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb - 6.6
Ape Escape 2 9.0
I think this speaks for itself. Sure, there are some highly rated games there (NCAA Football is a 9 on each system) but as you can plainly see they have NO FEAR of giving a low review score.
If you could be anything you want, I'll bet you'd be disappointed.
most people who buy cellphones don't even know what a game boy is.
:)
OK, even we take your line of reasoning at face value here (and I don't. Personally, I think people who buy cel phones are more likely to know what a Gameboy is, as opposed to someone less interested in technology) what makes you think they would suddenly be interested in playing games on their cel phone? If they don't know what a Gameboy is, then they are not exposed to, and/or don't care about, hand-held video games to begin with. Sure, there will be the curious who might think it's novel to play games on their cel, but their numbers won't be significant enough to make the system profitable in the long term for Nokia. Nokia is in a lose-lose situation. This N-Gage will be a little footnote in hand-held retrospective articles on gaming sites a few years from now. Maybe with some "What was Nokia thinking?!" commentary thrown in.