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N-Gage - Branding, Image, Follow-Up Possibilities
Thanks to Costik.com for its in-depth discussion of the Nokia N-Gage's advantages and disadvantages, a post sparked by Scott Miller's weblog post on the same subject, in which the 3D Realms founder argues "Nokia means cell phones to consumers. So, when Nokia jumps into the games market, it doesn't make sense to people", and concludes: "Nokia needs to create a separate company to handle the N-Gage. The 'Nokia' name should never be associated with this device, much like the Toyota name is not associated with Lexus." Greg Costikyan's reply counters: "Launching N-Gage as a Nokia device wasn't a bad idea; the flaws of the device were, however", and ends: "I personally would not be surprised if, two or three years from now, Nokia decides to give it another go, with a new device."
"And who was dumb enough to think that people would be willing to take out the battery to switch cartridges?"
Heh. The problems you've mentioned, though they suck, are somewhat tolerable. What REALLY bugged me about the N-Gages was that all the demo units I played with had a "out of memory" message that you get when the phone feels it's time to reboot. I have enough of these problems as a Windows gamer, I aint taking that on the road.
"Derp de derp."
Except for the GBAs, GP32s and PDAs out there.
Go take a look at Bobbee Tec's engine, the Yeti3D engine, or Apex Designs' Payback. The Doom port wasn't very good, but it's not near the best the hardware has to offer.