Next-Gen N-Gage Getting Ready to Go

We've previously discussed the lackluster performance of Nokia's N-Gage handheld system. Just the same, despite a market seemingly sewn up by the DS and PSP the company is getting ready for another go. Pocketgamer reports that Nokia had a group of game development houses down to Santa Monica, to check things out and decide for themselves whether they wanted to make a game for the new platform. Another two-day event is slated for Madrid next week, and you'd expect there to be some discussion of the platform during GDC in March as well. No word on a release date from the article, but these certainly point to signs of Nokia's product having at least some chance coming out of the gate.

Comments

Why?

[Mr. Hankey]

Not to sound too negative, but why? There are already handhelds on the market (one from Sony and two from Nintendo, even the GBA still sells) that are more than capable of fending off an uninspired phone/console combo. People who play games probably want to do so on a dedicated gaming device, to avoid killing their phone's battery life. A built-in game or two couldn't hurt, and there are already a number of games you can download based on Java. It almost seems like they want to lose money with these devices.

I guess on the plus side it couldn't suck as badly as the original N-Gage, they must have learned something from the horrible control layout and weak graphics capability. Good luck to them, and let's hope for a solid implementation.

Awesome!

[Sunburnt]

I wonder which ethnicity's cuisine they'll tap for design inspiration this time?

Re:Just Throw a Couple of Buttons...

[vertinox]

I think the flip phone design would be best. I was thinking like the DS only smaller.

The only way the nGage would ever succeed is if they:

1. Alow and foster homebrew (aka Mame games).
2. Have a touch screen. (Dual screen in your suggested flip design would be nice)
3. Have the ability to read SD flash cards for memory (same ones you can put in your cameras)
4. Have a USB port (well this one isn't 100% needed if they comply with #3)
5. Make game development really easy (see 1)
6. No tie in with any Cell phone provider.

But seeing no company has the balls for #1 the device is doomed to failure...

Re:Just Throw a Couple of Buttons...

[Goaway]

1. Alow and foster homebrew (aka Mame games).

Nokia phones, and most likely most others, have done exactly that for like a decade now. Maybe your provider removes the functionality, but that's another problem entirely.

Here's your MAME for N-Gage: http://www.harmonicode.com/EEMame/

Sigh, Nokia, so close

[Cadallin]

Yet so far. The N-gage is a dead end, drop it. It's never going to succeed, because you're never going to get development on it. Unless you're willing to start up a top tier development studio and market some AAA titles, which would be hugely expensive and would still probably fail. You're not Microsoft, you can't bull your way into a market running billion dollar losses.

Now, what should you do? The Internet Tablets. These things are hot. However, they need some major tweaks. Stop trying to use your current smartphone batteries for them, their restricting your battery life and your power budget WAY too much. You need something beefier, around a 2200-2500mAH battery. What to do with the extra power? More CPU for Crissakes. The 300MHz arm is not doing what you need. You need either a much faster chip, or one of the hot new dual core ARM SOC. Also a media accelerator. Let's see some 2D acceleration on that bad boy. THIS is your game machine. It'll do everything. Wi-fi internet, SKYPE, media playback. Its potentially an iPhone AND PSP killer. Put some money into bluetooth gamepads and its suddenly a far cooler game machine than the PSP and GP2X combined.