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The Seven Deadly Sins Of The N-Gage
Decaffeinated Jedi writes "GameSpy has posted an interesting article examining the so-called Seven Deadly Sins of the N-Gage. The 'sins' of Nokia's mobile phone/portable gaming unit cited in the article include problems with inserting and removing games, the less-than-intuitive interface, and the relatively high price. In all fairness, however, GameSpy also looked at the Seven Virtues of the N-Gage in an editorial from December 2003."
Point number seven is just moronic. The PSP? No one can say anything yet about what will come out of it. How about comparing to products that are out there instead of concept designs that don't even have a release date or any game library to speak of (as opposed to the small one of the N-Gage).
And then there's the one complaining about the lack of exclusive titles. GBA I can understand, but PSOne? It's old, it's not portable. I really don't see why it's going hurt N-Gage so much.
The price argument is equally ridiculous. This is a high-end mobile phone *and* a handheld console we're talking about here. What do you expect?
Can we not also give the "taco" thing a rest already? It's a getting-used-to thing, there's no particular reason it should look more stupid than talking to a regular cell phone.
Finally, it's true that the game change method is a little cumbersome, but I'm betting it's been done because the machine just has to be shut off when the game is changed. Just wanted to point that out, doesn't change the fact that it's not too convenient.
The quality of journalism at GameSpy is just horrible. I don't know why I bother reading anything over there anymore.
While I'm posting, sins 4 and 6 are crap. It might look like a taco, but that makes little or no difference when you use it, and the interface is one of the best available for a mobile phone.
I take it you don't read the Your Rights Online section.
No, seriously. Do they have articles that aren't divided up into lists? Seven Deadly Sins Of The N-Gage, Ten Portables That Aren't The Game Boy, 50 Games That We're Really Sorry We Gave Huge-Ass Review Scores To... Do their advertisers force them to do this or something?
"... and for ladies that want to keep it in their purse, be prepared to keep some of your makeup or other essentials at home, since there won't be room for them."
Exactly what is that demographic like? The one that includes early-adopting, high disposable income, avid gaming women?
I suppose that's like 4 people, including those in American Samoa. I tried to find some girl gamers but Yahoo won't let me talk to them without verifying my age. Damn you Ashcroft.
-- I have fans? Wow.
Gamespy is one of the sites that has given more coverage to the N-Gage. They have a link in their main page, together with the links of PS2, Gamecube, Xbox, GBA and PC. They have had editorials, promotions, etc.
So i guess they are giving the system a deserved good-bye.
However I can understand them. The N-gage market is a small but atractive one. Idiots WITH money! you can't loose trying to sell something to that.
The arthor really had to strech to come up with seven complaints about the N-Gage. 1. Second-Hand library - a fair wrap
2. Bad screen orientation - a fair wrap
3. Game change chaos - fair, but it will be fixed in the next N-Gage model this year
4. Talking Taco - now this is a strech - does this really bother people?
5. Pricey - It's pricey compared to a GBA, but about right for a a Symbian phone. Remember, it does more than play games.
6. Not A Pretty (Inter)face - Another bad argument. If you are not used to any kind of UI, you are not going to like it at first. The UI is consistent with other Series 60 phones from Nokia and other vendors
7. N-Gage vs. Goliath - It's fair to compare the N-Gage to the GBA, except the comparision is just a rehash of argument #1. But the PSP is vaporware. And the Zodiac? Please.
They complained about the vertical screen format, but they missed a big issue with the thing: the screen is the size of a postage stamp. Half the size of a Game Boy Advance screen, if that.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Overpriced? For a super featured phone, it's cheap. Getting a carrier unlocked triband 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 current $259 CDN retail on the N-Gage. We're talking around the $1,000CDN for an unlocked P900.
:p
No phone I can get for 220$ CDN does MP3, AAC, MIDI, WAV, etc, playback that also does movies. It also has an FM radio which I can record from. It's also got support for all the whizzy ringers (the aforementioned MP3, MIDI, etc support) and a big, colour screen.
The NES, NeoGeoPocket Color, and GameBoy emulators for it are the icing on the cake. I own a lot of NES and GB/GBC games, and a lot of them fit on a 128mb MMC card. I don't have to change those games all the time
Let's review. The N-Gage is not a gaming deck, but it is a great phone which does a whole bunch of whiz-bang over the 200$ 6310i my provider was offering me for another 2 year renewal (which has bluetooth, but is not colour, no MMC support, etc, etc, etc). And I can use my N-Gage in Japan and Europe on their GSM networks with local SIM cards.
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Perhaps the biggest sin of all was that it's primary audience was portable phone users, and it's secondary audience was gamers. Then they proceded to market it mostly as a gaming system. Given the choice between two identical gaming systems, the cheaper, better looking, and versatile system won--GBA SP.
For phone users, like myself, we've got contracts. I don't even consider a new phone until my contract is fulfilled. So I checked the carriers, and Verizon didn't subscribe. Without breaking my contract, about $125 over the cost of the system, I couldn't use it at all. Add to that the probability that two or three contracts down the lane ALL phones will have portable gaming rivaling N-Gage.
So in summary, they wanted phone users to buy, but marketed to gamers, and they should've known they could only get NEW phone users. What a way to mismatch a product with advertising!
Virtue or Deadly Sin? The N-Gage is responsible for inspiring this site: Sidetalkin'. You be the judge.
I have been following N-Gage development and marketing very closely. I am living in Oulu, Finland, which is one of the fortresses of Nokia. Here Nokia employs around 4000 people. Nokia has 80% cellular market share in Finland. The Finns have similiar relationship with Nokia like Czech people have with their Skodas. They take it almost personally.
Nokia's way to handle N-Gage has been a big disappointment for me. Here are my opinions why Nokia failed in the points listed by Gamespy and some additional views for the case.
Sin #1: Second-Hand Library
Nokia marketing team has pushed hard to make N-Gage attractive platform. However, the game companies haven't accepted N-Gage. I have made some N-Gage programming myself and I have heard various stories about N-Gage development. Developing for N-Gage is painful because of technical problems. For example, the sound server is descripted as a "hack" over Series 60 user interface. The sound server cannot play sounds seamlessly and simultaneously. Game companies don't believe to the success of N-Gage and have doomed it because of its technical problems. Thus game companies avoid N-Gage projects.
There is no special hardware in N-Gage (same hw as in 3650, etc.). Direct hardware manipulation like in GBA is not possible due to Symbian OS layer. OS and mobile phone fuctions gulp some of the precious CPU cycles. The 100 MHz of N-Gage is not effective 100 MHz for a game engine.
Sin #2: Screen Scream
As a cellular phone N-Gage uses the Series 60 user interface which is designed for a 176 x 200 screen. Nokia didn't want to make a new user interface layout for N-Gage and chose the same traditional cellular screen as in other Nokia phones (3650, 7650). Maybe they thought saving some developing time taking this shortcut. This greatly decreases gaming experience, although N-Gage is marketed as a "game deck". Techical design and product strategy don't meet.
Sin #3: Game-Change Chaos
Symbian and Series 60 wasn't designed for hot pluggable MMC cards. Nokia made it impossible to hot swap MMC to avoid accidental data loss and OS redesign. This was a shortcut in the development. Again, this is against enjoyable playing on the "game deck" marketing strategy.
Sin #4: Talking Taco
Yes, it looks a very funny. I am personally a N-Gage owner. I have heard a lot of comments about side talking from my friends. In my opinion, this isn't a such big deal. Mobile phones creep toward PDAs and screens begin to cover the whole flat side of phone. There is no more a traditional place for a microphone. More and more phones will have a microphone placed as in N-Gage. I believe Nokia "multimedia terminal" (7700?) has this layout too. Side talking loses its weirdness like talking into a mobile phone in public did in the first place.
Sin #5: Pricey Platform
It's a expensive gaming deck, but a cheap modern cellular phone. A mobile phone has naturally more technology packed into it than a plain game boy, making it more expensive. Nokia could have directed its marketing more to "cellular/gaming deck" from pure "gaming deck". Customers should understand the additional value of mobile phone features.
Sin #6: Not A Pretty (Inter)face
Nokia has been famous for its easy menu driven user interfaces originally introduced by 3110. This is one of the major success keys of Nokia. Pity, but when Nokia kept adding more stuff into their phones they lost clue on this matter. When phones have more features they need more menus and icons. Nokia didn't found a good solution manage all this in Series 60 phones. Series 40 (6550, 8xxx & co) have succeeded better, because they have monolithic software. Series 40 has less flexibility making it easier to make "obvious" user interfaces.
Sin #7: N-Gage vs. Goliath
I just read the SNK history article of GameSpot. In Neo Geo Pocket section GameSpot stated that no one has succeeded against Game Boy. Nintendo has very famous licences (Mario) and knows how to make good games
For me, the biggest sin of the Nokia N-Gage is that I've been to five different EB's with the demo unit, and at all of them whenever I tried to start up a game (usually Tony Hawk) the unit would sit there for a few moments, then give a memory error and drop back to the menu. One of the other times I tried to use one it was stuck in some weird menu selection or mode, and no amount of button pressing would get it to do anything. Maybe it was a bad batch they sent to this part of the world.
Why link to their 'stories'? They're not news. They're not editorial. They're just the random dribblings of some unpaid high school kid used to break up a stream of Flash advertisments.
Nobody cares. games.slashdot.org could raise its credibility by several notches by ignoring them outright.
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The people at Nokia are stupid. The N-Gage is useless as a gaming phone. If they had any sense, they'd market it as a phone which happens to play some games. Except the official N-Gage lineup sucks the wang. As I said, the other features are what make it desirable, especially at its low price point.
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