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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."
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!
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
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"