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The Future of the N-Gage
Gamasutra has a talk with Jani Karlsson, senior manager for the N-Gage at Nokia. He talks about how Nokia sees the N-Gage, and what they plan to do with the little engine that could've in the near future. Sort of. Kinda. From the article: "GS: So the new handsets which are coming out with the N-Gage technology inside. What's the visibility of the brand of N-Gage within those? JK: I really can't comment on that because I'd be stepping on other peoples turf. Every single product that Nokia has a strong individual marketing message to it. The power to decide the visibility or non-visibility of any brand, external or internal, is really down to individual brand departments. GS: So... you can talk about the future of N-Gage? JK: Sure - that's all about expansion, into the smartphone areas."
I predict the N-Gage's future, much like this comments page, will be devoid of any real content.
May the Maths Be with you!
In other words they're just going to put the right firmware in their high end phones that will let them play N-Gage games, despite the fact that almost nobody is making those. It'll be one of those expensive little side features that nobody uses. Hopefully the high end phones won't have to take on the awkward asthetics of a real N-Gage.
I'm guessing Nokia overestimated the market for halfassed ports of uninspired games on a clumsy phone/game hybrid system. The good news is that new phones should have support for better games than Worms, but they're never going to be a competitor to the DS or even the PSP.
I read the internet for the articles.
The only complaint I have is the "elephant ear" type use when talking.
I believe it's referred to as side talkin'.
The N-Gage is dead to me until they bring back sidetalking How could they get rid of such a great feature?
N Gauge is fine for making a small layout seem large, but I find it difficult to obtain the exact locomotives and cars that I want. This is odd, because N Gauge is rather popular in Europe and Japan. Of course, most Europeans and Japanese are probably not interested in recreating a cornbelt railroad. As a result, I would recommend most layout operators use HO, but N Gauge is not going anywhere.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
The N-GageQD is a cool phone. Most of the people who got them are happy with them. My nephew was one of them.
The problem was classically chicken vs. egg. There is still (and you may find this odd) a viable market for those annoying little Java games that people download and play. Nokia just wanted to bring the next generation of gaming experience to their phones.
The problem was form factor and controls, the phones of the day (when the original N-Gage came out), were phones like the Nokia 3650, the SE T610, the Motorola V180-V300. They didn't have the processing power to power a good game (e.g. Civilization) with the J2ME layer in the way, and they all had crappy controls for gaming (their little thumpads just didn't cut it). The N-Gage turned the phone on it's side so you could grip it/control it properly. It was a big step forward for gaming, but to get it they sacrificed it's usability as a phone. No one who "primarily wanted a phone, but was willing to pay more for better gaming." would have considered it, even though this was the identifying statement of their target market.
The QD was a nice step in the right direction. It's a usable phone, and a decent game deck. If the first model had been the QD, I think they would have sold off the shelves. But it now had the Itanium problem, of the first mediocre product killing the buzz for the second much improved product.
This led to secondary problem, with sales going "well but not amazingly" it was hard to get the game development wheels turning. And with poor selection, it's hard to get people to try out a new deck.
I'm glad to hear that Nokia isn't dropping the technology. I'm part of the original target audience. I need a great phone, and would pay $30-$50 more if it would play decent games too. With phones like my 6682 having processor to spare and sharp displays, I have hope that the next version will have an "N-Gage Enabled" sticker on it, a couple of shoulder-buttons, and let me carry a handful of postage stamp sized games in my wallet to make those dead times (like waiting for one's order at Red Robin) fun again.
...it is against grammatical rules to put "future" and. "N-Gage in the same sentence."
The real problem with the N-Gage is the marketing. Instead of pitching it as a console that doubles as phone, they should sell it as a phone that also plays games. The features the N-Gage has dwarf a lot of phones that sell for the same price; thing is, no one thinks it's a phone. They sell it in stupid places like EB when they should sell them at the Cingular store. People pay outlandish prices for phones, but not for gameboys. Sell it as a phone that also plays games real well, has support for java and simbian and whatnot, and people will buy it. Maybe put a cam on it and a keyboard for two way sidekick type crap. How such a feature rich phone failed to sell when less feature packed phones sell like hotcakes for twice the price is really a mareketing problem.
The N-Gage really isn't as bad as people like to believe. I will admit that I was less than impressed when the original came out with its issues of side talking, remove the battery to play games, and generally unappealing games. But Nokia has since fixed many of these problems, though the N-Gage image has never gotten over them. I bought an N-Gage QD because it was actually better than free ($50 rebate from T-mobile) and had bluetooth. Thanks to Symbian, I have an mp3 player, IM client (which works with T-mobile's $5 internet), and gameboy/NES/SuperNES/Sega emulators. While I don't own any of the first generation games save the crappy Tony Hawk that came with it, I've enjoyed a number of more recent ones. Catan is a great adaptation of the board game, Tiger Woods golf is a fun golf game, and the new Rifts RPG is one of the best RPGs I've played on a mobile platform. If it stays on track, the new Civilization game should be fun as well. Plus I can use a bluetooth headset and browse the web with my laptop, all on a phone that cost me less than nothing. And it works well as a phone too. I've had a lot of people laugh when I show them my phone, but once they watch me playing some Zelda or Rifts, the tone usually shifts to "Where can I get one?" Unfortunately, Nokia seems to have finally decided to abandon the platform. With the way their PR is going, I can't blame them, but it's sad to watch a phone that has finally matured die due to earlier blunders.