Nokia Admits N-Gage Sales Below Expectations

Thanks to the UK Financial Times for its article discussing Nokia's first public acknowledgment that the Nokia N-Gage 'mobile game deck' has not performed to expectations. According to the article: "'The sales are in the lower quartile of the bracket we had as our goal,' Jorma Ollila, the Finnish group's chairman and chief executive told the FT.", and it was further noted that "Nokia has set a target of selling 9m of the devices in the first two years, but the company has now corroborated early evidence from game stores that sales have been sluggish." Nokia had previously reported positive results in the short post-launch period, despite apparent evidence to the contrary, but the FT article ends with the Nokia chairman's comments that "the N-Gage had to be given until November 2005 before it could be judged a success or failure."

Comments

Re:November 2004?

[Irish-DnB]

I actually think it'll be the other way around. A friend of mine owns one and it is so awkward to use as a phone that it's only real use is as a console.

Re:It deserved to sell badly.

[fwitness]

"...the N-Gage had so many design flaws and stupid decisions I can't even begin to count them..."

My problem is with the poor design decisions, not with the design flaws. The N-Gage doesn't seem to have any real flaws, just conscious improper choices. The original PS2 had design flaws, i.e. with not playing DVDs, lasers going bad etc. However, having to disassemble the phone to change games is something they actually discussed and felt comfortable with.

That's what I can't stand. It's one thing to hear someone say something stupid. They may not know better, but when a group of people choose to be ridiculous, well, my sympathy goes way down.