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Hands-On With The Nokia N-Gage
CokoBWare writes "Finally! Gamesindustry.biz has done a hands-on review of the Nokia N-Gage cellphone/games machine. The results don't impress the judges much, but I suppose the consumer will ultimately be the judge."
Does it run Linux? Or can we port it over? :)
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
...but how long until we see Half-Life 2 for it?
From last week
...another thing to distract people while they're driving.
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If the truth scares you, cease asking scary questions
As mentioned here, from IGN Wireless.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2003-08 -22&res=l
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
In order to put a game into the system, you have to: turn the phone off, take the back cover off, remove the battery, slide out the existing game, put the new one in, put the battery back in, replace the back cover, hold down the power button for several seconds, wait for the system to boot up, open the main menu, select the game, open it... And then your game starts loading.
.02
Ok, so the thing LOOKS cool but is it functional. Apparently not. Who the hell wants to fumble around with removing a battery, sliding out an old cartridge, sliding in a new cartridge, and then replacing the cover?
The wait issue is of no relevance to me, who cares, what I care about is having to hold thirty things in my hands while I fumble around trying to switch games.
In this day and age, and all the devices that have come out (especially handheld gaming units) why would ANYONE think that this design would be acceptable?
Just my worthless
This is pure opinion, but I am certain that the Ncage will fail.
Thing is, most people buy cellphones for the purpose of staying in touch. The games are just a feature. It's much easier to justify $300-400 for a great phone which will provide crystal clear sound etc than for a very expesnive gameboy.
I just don't see myself or any 'adult' wanting an ncage. Sure the "adults" may play games on their PDAs and cellphones, but they didn't buy them for that purpose. The people who buy ncage will be doing so purley to play games, I don't see the gamer market being crazed about cellphones. The kids on the other hand would proably rather have a GBA nor would they have the money for an ncage.
In Soviet Russia, the television watches YOU!
From what I hear from everyone that gets a chance to play with one of these...they don't even make a good phone and the games are terrible!
Stick with your Nokia phone and GameBoy Advanced SP
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
Especially Tycho and Gabe over at Penny Arcade...
We don't need an "overrated" so much as we need a "you completely missed the parent's point, dumbass..."
This almost seems like we are back to square one with the evolution of these devices. Sure the 3g technology for the phone is there but should this be a gaming device too?
It seems to bulky to be a phone and too undeveloped to be a gaming device. Let's get a little more creative and start adding some better features to these phones besides blue tooth and better gaming capability.
austintsmith.com
no, people buy cell phones to follow the crowd. When the rest of the crowd has a cell phone that plays games, the rest of the people in the world will want one that does the same thing.
solution: buy a game boy advance and a cell phone.
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
You'd just store all your games in a big card. But big, dumb, copyright interests want a "secure", unnatural way to prevent copying. Abolish copyright, and we won't have this problem.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
"no, people buy cell phones to follow the crowd. When the rest of the crowd has a cell phone that plays games, the rest of the people in the world will want one that does the same thing."
The crowd does "cool" things. Playing games has never been "cool" its' been maybe fun. But never cool. It's one of those "geeky" things that "normal" people do sometimes because it's fun. The N-Cage will be one of those geeky odd things that has no real market.
In Soviet Russia, the television watches YOU!
I'm not banking on it. Why?
The phone companies in the US will try to provision it to death, like they do everything else, which knocks it out here. But that's just the start.
You are knocking out a lot of the prospective audience by making it a games device first and a phone second. You can get away with having your employer buy a phone with games, as long as it doesn't look like a GBA. You can get away with buying a PDA and putting games on it because it still looks businesslike. This screams "I'm playing games". Older folk aren't going to go for it, which leaves the younger folk, who aren't necessarily going to have enough cash.
It also doesn't bring any cool network functionality to the table. All of the games are just that... games. I might as well get a GBA and a phone. No MMORPGs. You have to use cartrages and they are a pain in the rear to install, instead of just letting you download stuff.
Of course, they may make the v2.0 or v3.0 version actually good.
Gentoo Sucks
uggh
I saw a N-GAGE at EBX this past weekend. It wasn't operable, but they did have some of the library for it. The Sega games made me look twice, but the rest of the library doesn't impress me any. Ahh well. I'd pay the $80 for the Neo Geo Pocket instead.
Sorry... dont mean to cater to the trendy aspects of soceity, but wouldnt you feel like an idiot talking into this thing in a crowded room? You gotta admit, for a good chunk of people ( the majority? ), a cellphone isnt just a tool, its also a piece of fashion. Why do you think they sell custom vanity face plates, or branded ( Gap, Roots, etc... ) cell phones. This one though... hell, im a geek and it still screams geek to me !!! :)
Not to mention that fact that you have to remove the battery to put the games in?!?!?! Um.......... how the hell did that idea make it out of engineering. That one design failure alone, leads me to believe that Nokia isnt that serious about entering the gaming market... either that, or the are just not meant to be there!
what makes them think that the combination cell phone/game machine is what people will want? I think that there are two seperate markets that they are failing to recognize. Are they trying to sell it as a cell phone that plays good games or a game machine that is also a cell phone. If it is the latter, then it is doomed to failure real gamers are going to be more concerned about functionality as a game playing machine only. In that regard, it doesn't appear to be ready to compete with the new backlit, rechargeable battery gameboy advances.
This could be interesting since everyone with an ngage should have access to the same network. They could probably do interesting things with this if they try hard enough. I bet it'll flop though...
Really? What if the consumer is a construction worker? Or a student?
Or imagine a scenario where they sell two N-Gages--it could be a judge and a construction worker!
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
The truely obvious question - when will gentoo be ported to this "platform"?
...I suppose the important question is, does this model spontaneously burst into flames?
And again I will say that multi-purpose devices only reduce the quality of each individual component.
Suck it up, and carry a gameboy advance sp for $99, and get the free phone the cell phone company offers you. Would you rather carry 2 superior devices, or 1 inferior device that requires you to practically take it apart to change games!? (note that the n-gage is $200 more as well)
Celebrate Steak and a Blowjob Day!
I think that this is just a bad implementation of a bad idea.
Inquiring minds want to know...
i am a soviet space shuttle
Playing games has never been "cool" its' been maybe fun
Maybe on a handheld...however, watching the commericals for games like Madden and SoCom, I'm pretty convinced that the game industy has turned certain types of games into "cool"
Doh!
The gameboy owns the handheld world. It is nintendos domain.
Better specs have not won the fight. The Neo Geo Pocket, TurboGrafx Xpress, Sega Game Gear and Nomad, Lynx, Game.com.
Many have come, many have failed.
Playstation Portable sounds like it'll be the first handheld to give the gameboy line a run for it's money. But I'm not banking on that either.
Nintendo promised some amazing new revolutionary whizamajig for next year. A successor to the GBA? A successor to gamecube? Who knows...
But, my bet is a portable gamecube. This is purely speculation, but it makes sense. The miniDVD format for GCN games has always been a bit of an enigmah - until you think about a handheld device... You could squish a gamecube into something handheld for the price of an nGage..
Maybe I'm dreaming, but hot damn that'd rock. Even if it was a different console, but they had "hybrid" games, ie, one version plays on the gamecube, a "lighter" version for it's portable sibling..
Anyhow.
Woe be to all ye who enter Nintendo's sacred grounds.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Apparently early reports is that at least the first batch of Ngages, the design is such that the game tends to get stuck in its little space. Like, initial reports are that if your ngage winds up like this, you often have to get a screwdriver or something and pry the game out of its place to change it.
If anyone can confirm or deny this let me know.
There are also lots of games out there made specifically for Pocket PCs, and popular desktop games that have been ported. Hell, I could even be playing SimCity 2000, Tomb Raider, or Ages of Empires if I wanted to.
Why no Slashdot articles about the GP32 and all the development efforts on that system?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
if you spend money on this Nokia N-Gage, you SHOULD be playing games on it, and your standby hours will certainly suffer.
the main reason for people to have cellphone is they can use it whenever they need to, what happens if you're enjoying your game half way through, an urgent call came in, and 10 seconds later the battery's dead?
so it's difficult to understand why would anyone design such (gaming) feature on a mobile communication device, which will seriously render the phone itself useless.
How can you complain about the games being on "small sd cards" - thats perfect IMO. After all your wanting a PORTABLE game device that is SMALL and takes up LESS SPACE on the go right? After all your playing games not working on your laptop? So how is that a valid complaint that "wah the cartidges are so small and easy to loose"
Also his description of putting a game in and switching cartidges is somewhat nonsense. If I compared it to my game it'd be somehting liek this: I have to put the cartidge in then turn the gameboy on then hit start to play the next game I have to turn it off then take out the cartidge then put the new one in the slot then turn it on then hit start - NO SHIT.
On another note i'm not getting one of these simply because I wouldn't be able to play Pokemon on it and trade my Machop for your Squirtle, thats really the only factor in my choices.
Ave Molech Setting
I'm still a fan of convergence, even though i see it done badly so often. Kinda like horror movies. I can put up with a lot of Scream swquwls for one "Ring", and I can sit through a lot of MS Bob, NGage and fridges with net connections, for one good media and entertainment device that fits in my watch pocket and last several days on a charge.
remember listening to midi files over a 600 baud modem? in a decade (and a half) we have music studios under $1000 in our bedrooms, and we barely use them for more than websurfing...
Looks good for your age..
Uh, 'cause a cellphone is easier to hold up to your ear?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Actually, it wasn't on-topic. If you read the news page for that strip, you'd see they were making a comment on the "N-Gage Special Forces" promotional crew more than the system itself.
I own a GameBoy, I own a phone. I have no need for them to be combined. This is the same reason I don't own a clock radio - I have as much need for being hassled by overly-eager DJs in the morning as I do for badly implemented games on the street.
Why do people selling communication devices feel the need to include seemingly cheap (but actually bloody expensive) gimmicks?
Oh, yeah - because dummies buy them. I, for one, am sick of being surrounded by people swapping ringtones and discussing piss-poor implementations of Invaders and Pacman.
A mobile MAME box - now there's an idea! Or maybe I'll invest in a battery pack and mini-tv for my ZX Spectrum.
Real games in those days... When I were a lad all this were just fields... Lara Croft? Bah!... new fangled... Dig Dug any day... blimmin' Grand Theft Auto? In my day we just stole the cars for laughs...
Its a shame they didn't pay attention to detail. The problems outlined by the article will definitely steer me clear of the system all together. A horrible UI, pain in the ass to change games, can't listen to the MP3 player at the same time as playing the games, etc.
I disabled all of the extra features on my cell phone because they weren't worth the extra $ every month. I tried to buy tickets for a movie once on it and when I went to pick them up they handed me 3 pair of tickets when I only ordered one! The UI for the browser would bring me pack to the confirm page each time I opened it - I decided then that the service was not ready for prime time.
I come from the school of "design the device/application to do its primary job right and do it well". If your going to try and sell me on half assed features, then I'm not buying. My phone handles phonecalls well and thats why I bought it. The NGage looks uncomfortable as a phone, and falls short on everything else.
Sound waves should be free!
But a lot harder to load your porn onto...
Now THERE'S a winning idea, Nokia!
skye
N-G-A-G-E
Now you try. N-Gage. Easy, huh? one more time. N-Gage.
Am I the only one that dosn't want to make calls, store my calander, play games, listen to MP3's, email, IM, Text Message, all on the same device. What if I deside I want a better game player, what do I do with the rest.
Not to mention a GOOD mp3 player is $200, good portable game system is $100, PDA: $250, Cell Phone: $200. So unless this thing cost $750 what's the chances of it not stinking in atlest one (if not more) of these areas.
Oh, and I'm not buying the component reuse argument. A good PDA screen dosn't make a good Cell phone screen. Plus then all you get is a bunch of software emulated hardware function.. whoohoo
"Failure is not an option, it's part of the standard package"
Is it my imagination or are these cellphone beginning to resemble more like laptops for each generation of phone?
:-)
Interesting on how throughout the article Nokia is likened to Microsoft:
Nokia seems to assume that everyone wants to leave their phone on Bluetooth "discoverable" mode at all times - but frankly, given the fact that the protocol is completely insecure, we'd really rather not, and it would be nice to have an LED to show us what the status is at any given time.
"Insecure." 'nuff said.
!@#$% whole-grain cereal. When I want fiber, I eat some wicker furniture. - G. Carlin
As it is, this product is just an ungainly Frankendevice that instead of being marketable to the cell phone and gaming crowds, is priced so high and is so clumsily designed that it appeals to neither. They made a 'meh' product, and I was hardly suprised that, no matter what store I went to or where I went online, nobody's excited about this.
This thing is DOA, and I feel truly sorry for the parents that are convinced by one of the few children who succumb to Nokia's puerile "Be an adult, Play NGage!" ad campaign to drop, what, $400 on this? It was a reasonable try at something novel, but no rational person who is not a free-spending millionaire with a Nokia fetish is going to go within 100 feet of this system.
and may I ask, are you for real?
How will you play it on an airplane? I'll bet they won't let you play it on an airplane.
It probably wouldn't be a good idea to buy this, if you're going to try and use it on an airplane. Just buy your own airplane.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
It's not perfect, but it's still cool to play Super Mario Land on my phone.
I not sure how well this will do in the US but in the UK I can see this becoming very popular. Over here a mobile is not just a "phone" but a fashion accessory (especially amongst the young). For instance when the Ericsson T68 (colour screen) was launched it cost around twice that, of the one it replaced ~150(GBP) but it was sold-out almost everywhere for a month! So this seems like the next step, and whether it is good or not seems not to matter so long as it has the right image.
I agree that it won't do well, but for different reasons:
(1) All games consoles, including handhelds are sold at a loss, with the expectation that the licenced software sales will more than recoup the hardware costs. Nokia are not doing this - they are charging full price for the hardware, and then leaving the developers free to charge full price for the software. Nintendo and co can't lose so long as they produce great games, or profit from the 3rd party developers, but Nokia, as a hardware-only company don't have this revenue channel.
(2) The hardware in that phone is virtually identical to the 7650 and 3650 Nokia phones, which are considerably cheaper. These already have very large software catalogues, and the userbase to encourage developers to write new games for them. Producing cartridges for a single unproven platform is VERY risky for a company, so any games for the NGage will likely be slightly enhanced (if at all) versions of the games for the other 60 series phones.
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
I *am* an adult, and I own a GBA SP. I've also owned a GBC and GBA original. There is absolutely *no* reason for rational people to buy one of these things, as it's WAY cheaper to buy a cell phone and a GBA SP separately. This way, at least there's tons of games for the gaming device!
Nokia, seriously, you're going to screw yourself over with your latest device. Do you really think that you can go up against the GBA with what you've got and WIN?
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
"Nokia needs to think very hard about whether it's really committed to the games industry, and whether the people who planned this device really understood what they were undertaking to do in the first place."
Shame on you, Nokia, shame!
...and I judge it barely worth ridicule.
Will it run Linux?
It has to.
I do think people actively buy a cellphone with some games over one without. They make great entertainment while you are waiting for somebody to show up.
But I think that's an added feature, not a primary purpose for purchase.
And those are all simple games that can be played for 5 minutes, not Pandamoneum or Tony Hawk.
They'd probably get something out of The Sims or SimCity or something like that. Not ported PS1 games.
Gentoo Sucks
it's not very easy to justify 300-400$ to a phone just for speaking, unless you just like shiny things.
fyi, you can get phones for much under that are perfect for 'just getting clystar clear sound', even in market areas where tying the phone and provider is illegal(that is, in finland for example). the 'crystal clear' sound hasn't been an issue for the last 5 years anymore(as long as the phone stays in one piece and doesn't break up), except of course in areas with poor gsm operators who don't think it's important to have good coverage throughout the nation(finland isn't exactly packed with population in the rural areas, but the phones work flawlessly). things like battery life(which you can't feel when buying the phone) and stylistic features and now real extra functionality have become the things to seperate yourself from the market.
the thing is.. it's also a s60 phone(and afaik, it's going to be the _cheapest_ s60 phone available, not sure on that though), allowing you to run symbian apps(c64 emulator, gbc emulator, read ebooks, read slashdot, wipe your ass, develop stuff for it with freely available tools, does your dishes, let's you get the latest news, use as a remote control for your pc through bluetooth, have bluetooth dongles at both work and home and use it as a data transferer.. it has pretty wide array of geeky uses), so it's not just a 'phone' anyways. it also has a memory slot for relatively cheap media(compared to sticks&etc) that's available too, easily in any pc store.
and as for why people buy cellphones.. they need to have it, it's no longer considered an option to have it, everybody has it and is pretty much expected to have one as well. when they get tired of the old phone(or if/when it breaks) they pretty much 'have' to get a new phone, some go for the looks, some go for the geek features, some go for the pop features and small size.
while i do agree(heck, i've heard that even nokias engineers agree) that it is retarded to have the mmc card under the battery(dunno, maybe the original design team thought that it would be only changed every once and then?).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I haven't been able to find any pics of people using it as a phone. Not even on the N-gage's official site...
I guess it really does make you look stupid if no one will alow themselves being photographed doing it...
"But I trust in the people's capacity for reflection, rage and rebellion." -Oscar Olivera
I always thought Picard would sue them over the name....
A Gameboy Advance SP is $100. If the N-Gage were, say, $150, THEN I think they'd have something. But for $300, it has to be both a great phone, and a great gaming system, and its only target market is those people who were thinking about buying both a Gameboy and a cell phone at the same time.
At a price point around $150, it would only need to do ONE thing well, and the other integrated feature would merely have to justify the additional $50 or so.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
That's the exact same thing Nintendo did, except Nintendo A: provided physical volume controls so you could turn it down if you didn't want to listen to the sound, and B: didn't force you to buy the adapter for the headphones.
Nokia may be including a set of headphones that works with the system, but you're still paying for them, the cost is just hidden in the overall cost for the system.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
1) Size ...we were still struck by the size of the device ... . It looks and feels like an Game Boy Advance on a diet, and although it's large by modern mobile phone standards, it fits comfortably in an average trouser pocket and is light enough to carry around comfortably.
2) Backlight N-Gage, by comparison, has superb resolution, a consistently bright display and excellent colour contrast.
3) Graphics Processing ...we do wonder why Nokia chose not to put something like ATI's mobile 3D graphics chip into the N-Gage ... The inclusion of a dedicated 3D chip would also have eliminated the framerate problems which plagued a number of the games we tested on the unit...
4) Battery Life ...and I'd be a bit worried about the battery life too - my current phone lasts for days without a charge, but this one seems to run down pretty fast when you're playing games on it."
Those are retty critical design tradeoffs in embedded systems. Also the headache symptoms in the review may be due to the LCD clock and the backlight pulse width modulation frequency being out of sync. This is known to cause eye strain in optical designs.
Holland
This is patently false with regards to Nintedo - neither the Gamecube or either version of the GBA is sold at a loss. And it's been that way....pretty much since launch of any of those systems.
"and as for why people buy cellphones.. they need to have it, it's no longer considered an option to have it, everybody has it and is pretty much expected to have one as well."
I am probably the only person in America who doesn't have a cellphone. Why? When I go out and get away from my computer (and my phone) it is usually becuase I don't want to be found. I don't want to be bothered every minute of my life by ppl calling me up. I just want to be left alone. Now you could say 'just turn the thing off when you don't want calls', but for me that accounts for 100% of the time it would be useful. If you want to call me, call me at my house, call me where it old you I would be, and if you don't know where I am it is becuase I don't want to be found. And there are a few other aint-social types like me who just don't want to be bothered.
That being said, the fact that this n-gage thing is a phone certainly doesn't excite me at all; especially since it would be cheaper to just get myself a regualr cellphone and a GBasp. In addition, it is better to have the devices seperate in case its stolen. You go out, talk on your cellphone, and if its stolen it isnt the end of the world. But if you lose a gameboysp or a n-gage, that is a bit more seious a loss. So say I was going out partying. I would much rather take a 50-75 dollar cellphone with me than to take a 300-400 ngage.
Personally, I think waht will make or break this is the games supplied for it. If the ps thing comes out with nearly teh same games, this thing is screwed. As far as competeing against the gameboysp, I don't think it can. Somehow, playing old SuperNes games on a handheld is jsut a lot more appealing to me (possibly and probably nostalagia) than playing the first couple PS titles. With a cost like 300-400 it isn't going to be for the kiddies, so nostalagia to us gamers who grew up playing SNES will definitely be hard to beat. (If they get square/enix to make a few titles for the ngage, I might get it, but as it is how can you compete against link?)
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
nokia apparently thinks its consumers are morons:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/jackass.gif
If an N-Gage locomotive is four inches long, a cell phone at that scale must be on the order of microns. ::ducks::
char *mySig;
Didn't IBM try this with languages back in the 60's? They created a langauge that tried to be everything and it turned out to be crap.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Starting with an empty device and getting to game's title screen:
1. take the back cover off
2. remove the battery
3. insert game
4. put the battery back in
5. replace the back cover
6. hold down the power button
7. open the main menu
8. select the game
vs.
1. insert game
2. turn on
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
"nor would they have the money for an ncage"
Especially considering you can get a ps2 AND a gamecube for the price of a single N-gage. Portability is nice, but not at this price.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
If Nokia had just made it so you could talk on the phone the regular way without looking like an idiot and made it so that you could change games in one easy step instead of 10, this thing might've done just fine actually.
Nokia usually designs good stuff. How the hell did this happen? How did a company with a history of designing fairly elegant devices mess this up so bad? I really don't get it.
Any other company, even other divisions within Nokia itself, would design such basic features to be easy to use. Did they not even bother to make a second draft of its design? What manager in their right mind would have approved this device as ready for production?
well, most people do go out while they want to be available(most of the time, and when you don't, like you said you turn off the thing). i bet even you do go get pizza sometimes while you might be called, most people don't spend most of their time at home even(unlike slashdotters). it's quite hard to arrange a meeting by phone if there's just short windows on both ends that have to match to be able to make that call
anyways.. the difference in 10 years has been huge over here, now everyone has a cellphone, it's natural. no longer it's a streak of luck to have a phone at the site of emergency either, arranging to meet your friends has become a LOT easier during those years, along with asking for directions and all sort of other stuff(phonebooths, what phonebooths??).
and the final straw is that people don't no longer get the landline phone attached when they move to a new apartment, so for most single people the cellphone is also the _only_ phone.
but this is really useless since there's few dozen "i dont want a cellphone wee wee" trolls and similar responses everytime there's a slashdot story that mentions cellphones at all, and i'm starting to just get the feeling that usa is in the spot in cellular adaption that finland was 7 years ago(things like no free calls to local numbers on landlines did imho greatly push the adaption forward too). the first game phones were big hits too(i know i liked my benefon io, which was a great phone and had tetris too)
i think the logic for having gaming capabilities goes bit like this -> adding them doesn't make the phone any less phone -> market wants phones in that price segment(verified) -> we're going to add enough power and features to allow somewhat decent games anyways, so why not add games to the mix big time.
they wouldn't probably want to admit it but the way things are going they didn't have to change their platform too much for the gaming(ie. it was possible anyways, just untapped if left alone).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
...going to Infogrames/Atari and asking them to license the Atari Lynx. So much time has gone by that the whole design chipwise could've been compressed into a single modern chip which would've cut the costs down significantly. They could've added the chip to several of their mobile phone offerings and then spent some money into beefing up the networked games for the Lynx so that they'd work over the mobile network to find other players to compete against. Say what you want but *Todd's Adventure in Slime World* was a great game when you were playing against 7 other players. The same goes for *Battlewheels,* *Warbirds* and several other titles. The problem with the Atari Lynx was, compared to the Gameboy, it was difficult finding other friends/acquaintances that owned them so you could benefit from the network gaming unless several members of a local Atari Computer Users Group also owned Lynxes (like S.T.A.R. here in Sacramento did). But with the compressed Lynx chip spread over the whole Nokia mobile phone product range, that would never be a problem.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
Means secure digital. Secure for them, not you.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
All games consoles, including handhelds are sold at a loss
Not necessairly true. Sony is making a profit on all the PS1's they sell now, and I believe they are also now making a profit on the PS2's.
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
Just a reminder to everyone who's saying buy a phone and a GBA instead...This thing has PS1 level graphics. The GBA was literally designed to have Sega Genesis / Super Nintendo level graphics -- a huge difference.
If you guys think old games with less sophisticated graphics are more fun then fine. However just as I'd not go buy an N64 when I could get a PS2, think I'd take an Ngage over a GBA.
The way I see it is that this is a gaming device that also does everything your phone does so you don't have to carry both -- a major convenience. Who wants to carry both a GBA and a phone?
Doesn't this phone fail to support handsfree and headset profile standards, or lock you to Nokia(tm) brand accessories?
I was real excited about this one, but I'm just as pleased as punch with my P800...
on a screen so small you almost can't see it. 1/2 the size of the GBASP screen. Completely worthless for gaming. And the phone is completely designed around being... a worthless game machine.
In short, it is "Teh suck". The GBA SP form factor would have made a much better phone (Course it would be bulked up a bit)
it's supposed to have a 1450mah battery
The Zodiac was formerly named the Helix
It is being developed byTapwave
As of now, the unit is set to retail at $299.99, similar to Nokia's N-Gage
It has movie functionality to support AVI, MPEG4, QuickTime, etc.
The unit runs an enhanced version of Palm O.S. 5.2.6
Preorders will begin in mid-September
Zodiac is set to launch in October, similar to the N-Gage
It features ananalog controller
MP3 functionality is included, much like the N-Gage
Itsupports Bluetooth for close proximity wireless multiplayer gaming
ATI Imageon powers the Zodiac's graphics
All games will be sold on SD cards as well and the Zodiac has two slots. So you can have two games in at once or a game and a WiFi card! (Information courtsey of PDArcade)
Announced games include Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4, Doom II, Neverwinter Nights & Spy Hunter
The Zodiac has open source capabilities
Tapwave will be releasing first party titles at launch, but assures us we'll see a host of third party and palm games as well.
The Zodiac is being aided by Fathammer's X-Forge. More on the X-Forge here. An interview withSamuli Syvahuoko, a founder, can be found here.
Fathammer also powers games on the N-Gage, such as Red Faction
X-Forge is a middleware product best described with this quote from the official site: "X-Forge is a comprehensive set of technologies and tools, which enables the creation and deployment of advanced console quality 3D games and other rich 3D content on all major mobile platforms. It is the ideal solution for game publishers and developers as well as mobile device manufacturers to catapult themselves to the next level of mobile gaming." -Fathammer, Ltd. Official Website (URL Listed Above)
it also has a lid to protect the screen. broken screen killed my last PDA.. ;/
visit my website for free downloads, music, games forums, and more
Mod me down if you like but OMG, what an ugly piece of crap.
It's half boomerang have spell-and-speak.
Why can't they come up with natural designs?
What was the deal with that article? Where were the screen shots? The 1st thing i wanted to do when i saw this article was to see how the games looked - what a dissapointment.
/didn't waste time rtfa
I don't want to read an article describing how it looks, how it works. ffs show me!
If you test a device like that you need to show: -screenshots -shots of the overall device (chassis etc..) then describe what is going on.
Really what a waste of time.
the 7135 is that bad? that's disappointing..I have a 6035 and hoped to upgrade once the price came down a bit (I got my 6035 for $50 at the end of it's retail lifespan)... guess i'll be sticking w/ what i got. Did you have a 6035 before the 7135?
From the GBA SP and the upcoming PSP.
"I never have to wait on an asshole at a green light because they are putting in a CD."
I'd prefer that a person return to the full upright position with both hands on the wheel, even if I wait a second or two at a green light, rather than have them speed off into traffic partially hunched over and with only one hand on the wheel.
Most drivers are lax in their attention while on the road, and it's very dangerous. Any time you do not have both hands on the wheel and are not scanning is a time when an accident is going to happen. You only have 400ms to react, and the time it takes to process + understand something is usually around 200ms -- assuming you're giving 3 seconds following distance.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
why the heck don't they bring it out here? Cheap, flexable, better graphics than a GBA. What gives? Yeah, I can import one, but I'd like to play some of those neat Korean games in english.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I guess it's neat to have so much functionality in one little device (the criticisms of the review notwithstanding) but I find that that the stupid B+W games on my standard Nokia are more than enough distraction if I'm bored and I have my phone with me. In fact, I'm really addicted to Bantumi even though I can beat it easily. Sometimes that's all you need to pass the time.
Nokia has almost the same strength on the mobile market as M$ has on the PC market and I see similarities between N-Gage a xbox. Xbox hasn't been a big hit (except USA) and M$ is said to loose money on the console but what do M$ care? They will be pushing Xbox until it succeeds, I imagine the same will happen to N-Gage, Nokia will push it and keep developing it until it succeeds...
The main reason for putting the memory card in the back is rumored to be the fact that Nokia designers WANT N-Gage users to take the battery out when changing MMC's. The reason is that allegedly Nokia engineers have not been able to perfect the Symbian OS - MMC interface, and changing an MMC without rebooting the OS might have some adverse effects. As mobile phones are required by international telecoms law to have minimum functionality at all times (e.g. call 911), it's safer to force a "reboot" rather than risk a bluescreen and a horde of US lawyers.
Well, we call it "English", and it doesn't seem to be THAT crappy. Inconsistent and unclear at times, but that's mostly operator error.
Or was that William Tindall in the 1560's? It's so hard for me to keep them straight.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Do you honestly believe that it pure production for each PS2 made costs in excess of $200?
Here's one place where the "loss" rumor comes from:
Say $1 million goes towards product development for a hot new game system. Now, say the product costs $50 to manufacture, and the manufacturer charges $250 for the system.
Vendors can charge whatever they want for it, because that doesn't affect the manufacturer -- more on this in a bit.
Okay, so for the first machine sold, the OEM has laid out $1,000,000 in R&D, $50 in production, and has been given $250 for the actual unit. That $1 million is referred to as "fixed cost" -- they've done the research, and the number of units sold doesn't change the fact that they've spent a million dollars on it. So, after the sale of the first unit, the OEM has spend $1,000,050 between R&D and production, and received $250 for the unit. They're now $999,800 further behind than they'd have been had they simply never developed a new product in the first place.
If they never sell another unit, then it cost them $999,800 to ship that unit. Of course, the second unit results in a net gain of another $200 for them, so shipping two units cost them $999,600. This is true until the 5000th unit, when they have broken even -- the fixed production costs (R&D in this simply scenario, in real life it would include rent, bills, etc. as well) are exactly cancelled out by the profit from sales.
The OEM benefits from each sale, since they've already laid out the money towards product development. Even if they're in the red on paper, each sale gets them further towards profit.
Now, I promised to mention vendors. Many stores, grocery, electronic, or otherwise, will advertise a product at a price cheaper than what it cost them to purchase from the OEM. If carrots cost me $0.29/can, and I sell them at 4 for $1, I am losing $0.04 on the sale of each can. However, I wouldn't do this because I'm a poor businessman. I would do this because I know that few people will enter a grocery store and buy nothing but canned carrots, and that I will likely profit enough from the sale of other items that I can take the four-cent loss.
It's called a "loss leader", and electronics stores very well may sell a console below what it cost them to purchase from the manufacturer, therefore losing money on the sale of that item. However, it is assumed that the buyer will also purchase games while in the store, and profit is higher on the games.
Of course, the aforementions paragraph has nothing to do with the OEM making or losing money, so should not cause rumors that Sony loses money on the PS2 simply because EB or Best Buy might sell it below what they paid Sony for it.
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
Of course you're correct, IF we assume transportation, storage and marketing all cost zero. AND we assume no units will ever break-down, nobody will ever need support, and the product never requires any kind of bugfix (software or hardware) in its entire lifetime... So, if all that is correct, then so are you...
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
Well, here's how I look at it (excerpted from my Weblog Rant, based off street prices for everything listed:
A lot of people gawk at me when I quote these kinds of prices, but it's true - the N-Gage is retailing at EB for $499 (barring any last-minute price changes). At the same store, you can get a brand-new XBox or PS2 for $249 (or bundles for $279), a GameCube for $199, a Game Boy Advance for $99, or a GBA SP for $150.
Similarly, I can go to the Telus booth and get a wide selection of nice phones for much cheaper. Do they do all this fancy stuff? Not all of them, not the cheap ones, but so what?
I could get a GBA SP for $150, a Motorola V120x for $130, and a Sony Cli PEG-SJ20 for $200, and still have $20 left over to buy the girlfriend roses so she won't get pissed that I blew $500 on stuff I don't really need (an important factor for many of the 18-25 crowd).
Couple that with the fact that it doesn't do anything well, looks stupid when affixed to the side of your head, has a proprietary headphone jack (Nokia, you don't have to copy everything Nintendo does, but try to at least copy the good stuff), it's a pain in the ass to switch games, and on and on and on.
Incidentally, why in god's name would I ever switch off my phone? These guys have got to be fucking kidding me.
Sorry Nokia, your new brand is now scarred for life.
--Dan
The Sims on a Cellphone!
Oh god..that'd sell like crazy. All these sim crazed teenage girls. Don't ever talk about this again. The last thing I want to see in people on the train talking about their "hygene levels" and their "body ratings"
Ugh...
In Soviet Russia, the television watches YOU!
and the final straw is that people don't no longer get the landline phone attached when they move to a new apartment, so for most single people the cellphone is also the _only_ phone.
I did this myself, because the cost to add another phone to my gf's cell plan was less than the cost of having a landline installed in the apartment. Unfortunately, my phone broke a couple months ago, the cell provider gave us some crap about the insurance, and eventually we had to send it back to Sony for repair. It's been 2 weeks since I sent the phone off, and I haven't been able to use it in 2 months. It's actually pretty nice when I don't want to make a call (which is most of the time).
but this is really useless since there's few dozen "i dont want a cellphone wee wee" trolls and similar responses everytime there's a slashdot story that mentions cellphones at all, and i'm starting to just get the feeling that usa is in the spot in cellular adaption that finland was 7 years ago(things like no free calls to local numbers on landlines did imho greatly push the adaption forward too). the first game phones were big hits too(i know i liked my benefon io, which was a great phone and had tetris too)
The plan I'm on seems to be one of the best ones in the US: unlimited local and long distance while in-area. Sure, the roaming minutes aren't great (something like 300), but the local coverage area is big enough that I have to drive about an hour (in one direction, on the interstate) before I'm roaming. In fact, I think I can get to the nearest large amusement park (Busch Gardens) without roaming. If my phone had Tetris on it, my gf would've taken it and never given it back, but that's another story (and the games on the phone aren't bad, for quick time killers).
i think the logic for having gaming capabilities goes bit like this -> adding them doesn't make the phone any less phone -> market wants phones in that price segment(verified) -> we're going to add enough power and features to allow somewhat decent games anyways, so why not add games to the mix big time.
I don't think the market for phones in that price segment is very big in the US, but I could be completely wrong. I also don't think holding it sideways against your head to talk without a headset helps, nor adding a games feature that requires a juggling act to change games. That, and adding that the games feature is pushed as 3D, while the rendering is software, and that the article mentions people complaining about headaches and eye strain. My phone didn't cost me anything (and, on the other hand, it's not supported very well in terms of being able to download ring tones, games, etc, because it's an old model), and I don't plan on paying for a phone any time soon. That being said, I wouldn't take an N-Gage for free unless every preview and review of the thing has been completely off-base.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
They'd probably get something out of The Sims or SimCity or something like that. Not ported PS1 games.
heh, SimCity2k was available for the PS1 iirc, but I'd quickly add that the game absolutely sucks ass without a mouse, and therefore will never do well on a cell phone without a significant rewrite of the interface.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
http://gamenerd.org/html/editorials/ngage.html
Conserve Oil, Recycle, Boycott Walmart
Cars often "break-down", and car manufacturers offer warranties. People often need support -- many dealerships offer perks such as free lifetime oil changes, tire rotation, and other scheduled maintenance. Often, cars require bugfixes (they're called "recalls" in the auto industry).
So, every single point that you claimed must be true in order for a particular product to be profitable fails to hold true in the auto industry, one in which established companies have managed to survive for years.
In fact, the games which you seem to think are oh-so-profitable cost money to transport, store, advertise, and market. Games may fail and be replaced by manufacturers, may require support, and may include bugs.
In fact, I invite you to describe a single manufactured good for the conditions you described hold true: 100% cost-free transportation, storage, and marketing, and a 0% failure and defect rate. You said that ALL of those conditions must be met in order for consoles to be profitable, so I invite you to either describe products which fit your own description, or to explain why console gaming systems differ from every other manufactured good.
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
Why didn't they just tell people to turn it off to change games, duh. A monkey with a can-opener as a brain could have thought of that (Which pretty much describes the N-Gage designers or the buisness suits behind it.). It works like that on the GBA. Oops, I forgot, the Game Boy is for ten-year-olds because of that Japanese idiotic stuffed shirt who is jealous of the Game Boy and this is for the "TEH X-TR33M UBAR K00L" demographic. Or maybe it has to do with it also being a cell phone. Who knows what they where thinking.
"I wonder what it's like living in a constant haze of stupidity" - Hiei, Yu Yu Hakusho
Well?
Should I assume that you can't provide any such examples?
Or perhaps you're busy, revolutionizing the auto industry, removing all transportation, repair, maintenance, storage, and marketing costs?
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
Was the Neo-Geo Pocket Color more powerful graphics-wise than the Game Boy Color? I seem to remember that the NGPC's format for graphics tiles had 2 bits per pixel, which limits each tile and each sprite to 3 colors (plus transparency). The GBC and the NES had the same limitation.
The GBA, on the other hand, has a graphics model similar to that of the Super NES.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Technologically, [Game Park's GP32 handheld] still even lacks hardware support for quite a few graphics effects that GBA/GBASP possesses natively.
True, the GP32 (like the N-Gage) draws to a dumb frame buffer compared to the GBA's more consoleish video architecture, but remember that the GP32's processor can do just about anything that a Pentium 100 could do. What were the requirements for Descent and the original Quake again? GBA video is very Super NES-like, and Super NES emulators almost ran at full speed on the P100. A similar video model could probably be easily implemented in software by somebody who knows ARM assembly language (for the GP32) or whatever the N-Gage uses.
To quote common American idiot mentality, "Sony = quality"
But in Japan, Sony seems to equal "piece of poo". Besides, does the Clie or the PSP come with a phone?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Sony invented the MiniDisc format and the UMD format. Nintendo uses neither of those formats. Nintendo did invent the application of a DVD-derived optical disc format with 80mm radius to storage of program and audiovisual data for a video game console. So though Sony invented MiniDisc(tm), Nintendo did invent a mini-disc.
Will I retire or break 10K?
English, a dialect of SQL, was created by the authors of the Pick operating system.
On Slashdot, we speak Bjelamerican.
Will I retire or break 10K?
This thing has PS1 level graphics.
So does the GBA. Point?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Well, to be fair we don't yet know what kind of discounts will be available from the cell providers. They usually give you quite a bit off the phone price when you start up a new service plan.
Also, the N-Gage is "scarred for life" just because you wrote something bad about it on your weblog? Now THAT's funny.
...wearing a skin-tight topless leather jumpsuit, with cutaway buttocks and transparent crotch panel.
No, it's scarred for life because it's a horrible product that costs more than it should, doesn't do anything well, and will be a gigantic flop. Even if they release a fixed version, people are going to say 'Oh, they tried that before, and it didn't work.'
--Dan