Slashdot Mirror
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."
Seeing as its graphics appear to be below that of a Game Boy Advance (aka SNES), probably never.
As mentioned here, from IGN Wireless.
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
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.
Why no Slashdot articles about the GP32 and all the development efforts on that system?
Actually, the number one distraction is Conversing with passengers, followed by Eating, then Reaching/leaning for things. Cell phones were a distant 8th--even behind dealing with children and reading. This data comes from a study by the University of North Carolina, and found on cnn.com
Here's the URL: http://us.cnn.com/2003/TRAVEL/08/06/distracted.dri vers/
I have actually seen people reading novels while driving down the interstate, and reading the newspaper, with it spread across the windshield.
The biggest distraction with cell phones is dialing numbers--I use a hands-free headset and voice dialing. I don't have to look at the keypad.
In America today you can murder land for private profit. You can leave the corpse for all to see, and nobody calls the c
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.
Older folk aren't going to go for it, which leaves the younger folk, who aren't necessarily going to have enough cash.
Even counting only US younger folk, the younger folk represent a spending power larger than a pretty decent chuck of the African continent. Well, I don't know about African economies actually, but teenager's influenced spending power is about $520 billion. Anually.
With handset subsidies being what they are in many places, the difference between a very uncool phone and a very cool phone may only be a few bucks up front (of course, you'll pay for it in monthly charges later..) Smart kids will negotiate a good deal with their parents, and get the cool phone.
Nokia already is in the business of launching cooler and cooler phones (which under the skin are about 100% identical as far as hardware is concerned). And they're doing well at it. The prevailing "hip" model "everyone" has changes at least once a year, after which you'll only see older folk walking around with them, fumbling to get to grips with having to push the green button for it to actually dial the number you just entered..
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
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.
Latest research (from Scandinavia or Finland) shows that it's not being able to concentrate which distracts whilst driving.
Radio, CDs are 'background noise' - they don't affect your concentration too much even if you're listening to a live debate, or documentary
Having a telephone conversation is, however, very d istracting. You must concentrate and interact much more which limits your road attention
Compound this with the fact that people drive too fast, and too close to the car in front (ie faster reaction times are needed) leads to a recipe for disaster
I think the link to the research is on the BBC website, but it's really late and I can't be @rsed to find it
--
This sig is inoffensive.
I remember listening to a report on NPR by someone from the Illinois equivalent of the NTSB and he had some good reasons for why cell phones are more distracting than stereos or even in-car conversation: Cellphones keep the driver distracted by a non-traffic sensitive other. Most drivers can work the radio without looking at it. Most passengers in the car can see when things are getting hairy traffic-wise and shut the hell up. Random on the cellphone doesn't know where the hell you are and can't tell you about the semi making a wide right.
blarg.