There has been an endless amount of text written about mobile gaming and the original N-Gage smartphone, much of it driven by personal taste ("I never use phone games" or "I never use games consoles") rather than a balancing of the facts.
In order to cut through all the ideological hot air, this article will just look at the problems and successes of the first generation of N-Gage as if they were many individual targets to be hit or missed: to succeed with its Next Gen Games Platform, Nokia must deal with the failures of the old N-Gage whilst preserving the things that worked.
Successes (notice how short this list is):
- N-Gage Arena
- Nokia First Party Games
- The Promotion of Pocket Kingdom
Problems
- N-Gage was a great smartphone, but it was seen as a disappointing console
- The N-Gage seemed expensive at $300 because handheld consoles cost less than half that
- N-Gage’s screen was vertical, while all other gaming platforms used horizontal screens
- Changing games involved switching off, removing the cover, removing the battery, changing the gamecard, replacing the battery, replacing the cover, switching back on and waiting for the phone to boot up
- Most of the N-Gage’s launch games were poorly implemented ports from other platforms
- N-Gage Games weren’t widely available after the disastrous launch
- N-Gage Games were really expensive compared to other smartphone games
- N-Gage didn’t sell well, and so didn’t have much support from third party game manufacturers
- N-Gage games were only officially available to one or two gaming-oriented models
- The N-Gage name became a byword for bad games
- Piracy
- Sidetalking
- Idiot Salespeople in Games Shops
Source: All About Symbian
Very very nice read. Definitely a lot better than anything I’ve certainly written about N-Gage. Then again I’ve always been biased. I thought it was a stupid idea from the start.
Personally when it comes to N-Gage 2.0 I’m going to take a wait and see approach. The amount of time I’ve spent gaming has decreased drastically over the course of a year. When it finally does happen, it is usually done in a social environment.
Thank you Nintendo Wii and XBOX 360.
My PSP and DS are literally sitting on a shelf collecting dust.