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N-Gage - Success Claimed, Unofficial Price Drop
Mirkon writes "After non-specific claims of high sales, Nokia's Ilkka Raiskinen has now stated that the Nokia N-Gage's first two weeks have seen massive success, with sales of over 400,000 units worldwide. Analysts are skeptical, firstly because 400,000 is not an exceptionally great amount, and secondly because the number 'refers to models Nokia has sold to shops and other retail outlets', not the amount sold to consumers." Also, drewqmn writes "I noticed on the GameStop website that they are already selling the N-Gage at $199.99 [GamerFeed has a story on this currently unofficial, store-specific price cut, though there are rumors it may be official soon.] Has any console/platform dropped in price so fast?"
I expect to own one in the next three months.
"Sales vs. Shipped"
Sheesh.
Why do corporations insist on these kinds of PR lies when the majority of their target audience can see right through them?
All this does for me is take my opinion from "that's not a good device" to "I'm never going to buy that because the company is totally full of it". What would the reaction be if Nokia played the honesty role, and released a PR statement with an understanding of their poor designs and shortcomings, an announcement of changes to counter the poor decisions, and an open ear to designs and ideas that would benefit a followup device? Would the gaming audience hiss and boo that much? How much would that change the general appearance of the company, and how many people would earn a little more respect for doing what most companies with failed products do?
This is a good opportunity to focus on the differences between the companies themselves, considering that Nintendo did just that. When their handheld product came short of expectations, they admitted their mistakes, turned right around and made a new version of hardware which was received with a majority of positive reactions.
This is a harsh contrast to Nokias consistent lying of ficticious successes in retail.
At this rate, they'll all be in a landfill in New Mexico within a month.
--- "Yeah, I'm a bit stressed out. I have a research paper due tomorrow and it has to be +5, Insightful."
I agree with the above points on the PR and marketing strategies that Nokia is taking, and frankly, I would prefer several devices that are good at what they do in place of a ball of mediocre tech slapped together. The built in phone is nearly impossible to use without a headset, and you have to remove the battery to change the PS1-esque, but buggier cartridges.
I'm happier with Snake than a shrunk down THPS.
Since the stores have already paid for the units does that mean that it's a good thing for Nokia but a bad thing for the stores who rushed out and stoked up?
Its gui was a pain in the butt to use. I sat there for 2 minutes trying to get the game to use bluetooth.. I got fruistraited and walk away.. It appears That I wasn't the only one that didn't like it There was another guy that didn't seem to play with it very long...
Nokia is like microsoft They try too much and thus products that are excepted but arn't up to snuff alot of the time.
So all and all I gave it a try.. I am looking forward to Tapwave's Zodiac. From the screenshots of it, I can tell its gui is nice and clean.
Ps/rant: I will never own a nokia phone
Nokia now giving away bags of cash with each N-Gage - public still skeptical. Nintendo and Ericsson still laughing their asses off.
Refuse to make a statement in your sig!
Ignoring its efforts to pretend it's a game console, it does have some nice features (decent screen as far as cell phones go, MP3 player, etc.), and since I'm currently pricing new cell phones I could see myself getting one for $200 if it weren't for one small detail: I'm happy with Sprint and don't see any reason to change providers (especially since it would mean another "6-8 weeks" for a new provider to process my opt-out request). Unless they broaden their provider support or release some damn good games for it, I don't think I could justify spending more than $100 for it.
there are 5,500 people out there enjoying their taco phone
Officially? No. Unofficially, yes. Online retailers generally sell their products at a slightly lower price than their offline counterparts as an incentive to buy online rather than offline. Course, shipping and handling usually and waiting for it to arrive usually ends up wasting that little you saved.
This is somewhat reminiscant of Sony's E3 2001 press conference. They spent 2 hours talking about how there weren't shortages in initial shipments, how demand was easily being met, and how the dev kit was a piece of cake to use.
Immediately followed by every developer saying "Yeah, this was a real pain in the butt to do with their dev kit."
Ignore your senses and reasoning skills. Trust the corp-speak. The corp-speak would not lie.
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
I can't be the first to think this:
So did Nokia hire that Iraqi Information dude or what? You know the guy "we are winning the war as the infidels kill themselves in awe of our greatness" yeah that guy.
I'll just buy mine a week after you.
Has any console/platform dropped in price so fast?
In the UK the Gamecube dropped in price before launch. It was originally announced at 179 GBP, but a few weeks before launch they dropped it to 129 GBP so as to undercut Sony and Microsoft.
Since its release in the UK, many mobile operators have been giving it away if you sign up for a contract, but even this doesn't seem to have persuaded people to get one. The way I see it, for people who want a phone it's too big and unwieldy, and for people who want a portable gaming device the GBA is a much better bet. I think Nokia may have produced a bit of a lemon here...
This sentence no verb.
That's because Sony and MS dropped their price in expectation of the GC launch. It's a slightly different scenario.
Hahahaha.
Ha.
Haha, ha.
Harrrr.
Mod this insightful.
For the record, I'd like to state that the above story bears little resemblance to what I actually submitted. For one, I also linked to a Gamespot article which I found to be at least as informative as the Reuters story.
And the submission is listed as "rejected" under my records.
Glog!
When you drop prices to match the competitor, that's smart business. When you drop the price like Nokia's doing now (and the Dreamcast was doing back in 2000, though not nearly as fast,) that's a big sign that you're desparate. On the other hand, it appears that it's an individual retailer as opposed to Nokia doing this, so they're probably not desparate to sell them so much as they're desparate to get rid of them.
And on another note, should we be sorry for the people who bought it in the past week because they could have waited a week and saved $100, or that they bought the POS at all?
yeah, right along all those E.T. Atari 2600 cartridges.
"It's not a surprise to us that the U.S. market needs a lot more work," she said. "[We've] still got a lot of work to do from an educational standpoint," Usina added... Yeah, but the ones who need educating aren't your consumers. I finally tried one at a kiosk in a Gamestop the other day, and to quote a character from a recent Nintendo game: "Sloooooooow."
Just means I'll have to wait until spring, since garage sales don't often occur during the winter around here.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
Somehow I remember that one hitting shelves at a clearance price, because its death was already a foregone conclusion.
The ______ Agenda
I bet the people that bought NGages got them from stores that offer a 110% price refund if the price goes down after you buy it.