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N-Gage Opts To Give Away Lara, Not Bury Her
Thanks to Yahoo for reprinting a press release announcing Nokia has teamed up with Eidos to give away over 70,000 copies of the N-Gage version of Tomb Raider at this year's Sugar Bowl college football game. An Eidos spokesperson oddly opines: "Lara [Croft] has always been the number one video game heroine, and it's appropriate for her to be present at this year's Sugar Bowl where the national champion will be crowned", and insider suggestions that Nokia are pulling an Atari of sorts, in the face of allegedly limited demand for the N-Gage 'game deck' are, of course, fatuous. Meanwhile, GameSpy weighs in with some reasons to like the N-Gage, still suggesting: "Nokia's game deck has a lot going for it, and is in many ways superior to the system that has dominated the portable gaming market for over a decade: Nintendo's Game Boy (now Game Boy Advance)." Update: 01/02 16:46 GMT by S : According to a L.A Times/TribNet article, Tomb Raider on N-Gage sold around 3,000 copies in October, the last stats available to the reporter.
They must be running out of good names for these products. When I first heard of N-Gage, I dismissed it as mispelling of something to do with N-guage model railroading. Now I know it is some sort of "cute" variation of the word Engage by way of "N'Sync".
It's not quite as bad, however, as that new line of digital cameras called "Dimage". It makes you think of a combination of "Dim" and "Damage", neither of which sounds particularly good for a digital camera.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I've been to EB games on no less than 10 occasions and tried to play the demo system that they have out(and not the same EB everytime either). Not once have I ever gotten a game to work on the damn thing. Its either stuck in some sort of limbo, or in some weird mode, or just plain off.
:)
Now, the GB SP that they display ALWAYS works, and requires no real thought to demo for 20 seconds.
I dont want a handheld that has to be babysat to work. Chances are, if I'm on my GB, I am out and about, and catching 5 minutes of Mario or Pokemon or something. I dont want 3 of those minutes fumbling with the system trying to get it to work.
Thats what I have a PC gaming rig for...
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
It might be underrated....but off topic? The N-gage is the subject.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
So those of us who can't choose between creationism and darwinism now have another choice: The universe was created in 1996.
Free as in mason.
It sounds like they are giving away just the game itself. Who's going to end up playing it? What's everyone going to do, go out and buy the N-Gage hardware to play the game? It's a pretty inexpensive proposition for Nokia. The software and the memory chip is cheap.
Some Reasons to Like the N-Gage
1.) It looks like a taco when using it in Cell Phone mode.
2.) You have to take out the batt. to replace games.
3.) Nokia paid us tons of Euros to write this article!*
Hey, there worth so much right now compared to our measly dollar, why not!
I beg to differ: Samus (of the Metroid game series) has been around a lot longer than this goofball of a videogame heroine.
Mod parent up
Samus? Obscure second-string character who does not even headline the game. Even "Princess Peach" of the Mario series outdoes her.
Is it just me, or does it seem that the big review sites (IGN, Gamespy and Gamespot) are beginning to pity Nokia just a little and are trying to say something or anything nice about the piece of junk?
I remember IGN slammed the N-Gage after it was shown at E3, and wrote many articles about how badly designed it was, and how useless it was etc... and then a few months later they suddenly wrote an article in its defence, saying that "they aren't sure why everyone is giving it such a hard time" (forgetting that they gave it a harder time than anyone else).
Now Gamespy is doing the same thing. Having said nothing nice about the system prior to release, or at release - they have suddenly written an article in its defence. And look at what they wrote - they say nothing about it having a good design (because it doesn't); or about it having good games (because they suck); or about being able to play it for longer than 2 hours (you cannot); or any of the other things that make a decent system.
I just find it amusing that having witnessed how badly it flopped (as it deserved to) Gamespy and co are trying to soften its fall.
Ok, I admit it, I own an N-Gage (though I admitted it in another thread already). Sure, it's not the perfect game platform nor a perfect phone. As game platform it's overpriced but for a super featured phone it's cheap. Getting a carrier unlocked GSM phone with the Nokia series 60 platform, full-on GPRS support, bluetooth and expandable memory is going to cost a whole lot more than the $299 retail on the N-Gage. At $199 with 3 games as it's currently priced at Gamestop the damned thing is a bargain even if you never open the games. Oh, did it get mentioned that the device is also an MP3 and AAC player. For those who care it's got an FM radio. More importantly it's got a speakerphone that works pretty well. It's also got support for all the whizzy midi and mp3 ringers you might care to load on it and a color screen for your favorite graphics.
I'll grant that the taco like shape is weird, but it makes the phone wide enough that it can be held between ear and shoulder while fumbling for the headset. I don't know how it's going to shake out, but I think that the N-Gage is one of the most misunderstood products in recent memory, both by consumers and by the manufacturer's marketing department.
The N-Gage is by no means a perfect device but for a fusion device with a few compromises it's not half bad.
Gamestop announces a sudden influx of 69,975 used copies of Tomb Raider for the N-Gage being traded in at their stores across the country.
showing off her ass? There is some shred of decency in the gaming public. For this I applaud.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
in the form factor of the Siemens S60. You know, where the keyguard slides off to one side and becomes two handed, with the screen in the middle. If they took that design, and made it so that it functioned primarily as a phone in the "compact" mode, and as the gaming system, webbrowser/email tool in the "open" mode, that would prompt me to go get one.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
What the N-Gage is good at is being the first of do everything devices.
Unfortunately it's too early for this to be done properly with a phone. The zodiac does a better job without the phone features. It marries, a PDA and a game console fairly well.
In a few years, if they can continue to shrink the size of components we'll see a successful N-Gage 2.
With only 2 hours of battery life for a game, it's not exactly something you'll want to be playing on train rides to work if you need the battery for the rest of the day for important stuff.
-- taking over the world, we are.
To make matters even more difficult for success: There is no CDMA version available!! Say what you want about CDMA but the two largest carriers with the most customers (Sprint and Verizon) use it. Nokia immediately severed millions of customers because the system won't work on the biggest networks.
www.lonseidman.com
Gamespy mentions one reason to like the system is true 3D graphics, while the Gameboy only does isometric.
1. Doesn't the Gameboy have some very primitive true 3D shooters, like Ecks vs. Sever and some other FPS? And Iridion 3D?
2. Who wants true 3D when it is sub-Playstation/N64 quality? Wooo! I can play the original Star Fox in all it's non-textured, 20-polygon glory! [not to say Star Fox wasn't a great game, but the graphics were bad]
And for those of you tired of advertisers stuffing money in pockets for good reviews and editorials, check out Penny Arcade and 1UP.com's editor Ivan Sulic. Gabe and Tycho stick to their guns, and Ivan seems to stick to his, also. When he doesn't like a game, he lets everyone know, even if the game is popular and reviewed well by the sites getting advertising dollars.
It's like sex, except I'm having it!
Buy a full page ad, get a front page story.
... that they have sold only 1000 of those things...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Yeah, but it's hard to masturbate when the object of your affection is covered by so much body armor.
Kinky!
But seriously, in the original 8bit game, if you finished it 3 times (keeping the same password legacy) you got to see her without her armor (green hair, brown bathingsuit...she keeps the gun arm), and then you get to play with her like that.
And in the SuperNes version, if you got a good time/gatherhunt rating, she took off (well, it just waved away) the armor and now wore a sexy black underware-swimsuit thing...
But yeah, Lara was the most "jerked-to" character (not speaking from personal experience mind you : )
You can't take the sky from me...
It's probably a coincidence that when i hit gamespy.com right after reading your post, i see a big ad for the ngage on their front page?
Yes, it's most probably their good heart that make them pity the ngage. It's just funny they didnt have one when they bashed it.
Nokia is just marketing the game, that's all. Each player in the Nokia Sugar Bowl is also receiving an N-Gage as part of their gift bag.
The author of that article, Darren Rovell, was doing a sports business segment on ESPNews talking about how he thought that the N-Gage was the best gift to get out of all the bowl games. He also speaks nicely of it in that article as well. He's their business guy and he didn't seem to have a damn clue about just how bad the device was or how poorly it was selling.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
The only thing it needs desperately is a Bluetooth keyboard.
CDMA rules here, Verizon did good to see to that. While certian areas have a few more of one other service carrier than another (especially your major metro areas) Verizon owns more than half the cellphone market here. If your stuff doesnt work with their stuff, your screwed. What WOULD help Nokia out would be to take Motorola's philosophy on the situation and make a phone that works on all of them (like the v60, or t720 which has a version for every major carrier) THEN the n gage might have a chance. I for one am not going to buy a 200 game system if one of its features (the cellphone part) CANT be used on my carrier.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Someone decided to take E-Trade up on their question "Well, we just wasted two million dollars...what are you doing with your money?" Apparently trying to convince 70000 drunk jocks to use one of those "De-jit-tal di-vices"....
Has the NGage sold anywhere near that many systems? I thought there were only about 5,000 on its launch. Of course, I didn't RTFA
Look it's a joke about my sig IN MY SIG! LOL!
I've got both and NGage and Tomb Raider....and tomb raider sucks just like I remembered it did many many years ago when it was first released. I don't think it's the NGage that is causing the game to suck....I'm pretty sure it's just the game.
Or does it seem like the N-gage is some mythological electronic item that everyone is talking / bitching about, but no one has it, or its not available in a store to demo? With all of the press i'd like to try it out, but I never see it anywhere working.
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Did anyone here go to the Sugar Bowl? Reactions? Were the bins filled with Tomb Raider on the way out? Anyone?