Wednesday's review of FIFA 08 on the N-Gage drew some interesting comments, namely that our review seemed to be a little different compared to Pocket Gamer’s (a great site for N-Gage content by the way). At a coarse level, we scored it as 78%, while Pocket Gamer gave it a lower 6/10 and a fair kicking [pun probably intended - Ed]. Interestingly, the frame of references the respective sites drew seemed to influence the score. I looked at FIFA from a casual gamers point of view, while Pocket Gamer decided a comparison to the Nintendo DS would be in order (and also to a number of Java-based football games – including the FIFA 08 Java Build). Of course, personal subjectivity also plays a role in any review.
And this comes back to one of my key thoughts about the marketing strategy that Nokia are pursuing with the N-Gage platform. They must do their best to keep the argument on their side of the fence – the idea of casual game-play, the idea of a mobile phone that plays good games (as opposed to a Sony PSP running Skype and making calls, for example). If the default viewpoint becomes ‘compare the N-Gage to the current generation of gaming consoles’ then getting the N-Gage platform into the popular consciousness, in a good way, is going to be that much harder.
This is exactly the mistake that the original N-Gage made. It announced the headline price of the device, the launch games were staples of gaming - Tony Hawk is a huge franchise, Pandemonium was well respected on the PlayStation, and Taito’s rather lackluster ports of Puyo Pop and Bubble Bobble set the scene – and the N-Gage handsets were being shipped to gaming stores around the world alongside the retail packaged games.
How could it not be compared to the regular gaming market?
As we now know, that comparison, and the lack of any new titles or news from Nokia in the three months following launch made up the minds of the press, and it took the rest of the life of the N-Gage and N-Gage QD to recover respectability – which it did, in titles like Pathway to Glory, System Rush and Pocket Kingdom. Titles that were exclusive to Nokia and that used the special characteristics of a mobile platform to their benefit. The problem was that there weren't many people watching it by then.
Compare that approach to the current N-Gage platform. The handsets were shipped out first – millions of N95’s, plus some N81’s and N82’s seeding the marketplace, just waiting to be switched on; a conscious decision to release the on device client not by a specific shipping date, but when it was ready; a public beta test to make the final changes in the client software. Of course there's now also the potential for millions more device to be shipped with N-Gage switched on out of the box. While relatively subversive, Nokia will be able to grow the installed base far beyond the three million the original N-Gage had. Now it just needs to let everyone know that they have this platform available on their phone.
So it was with raised eyebrows that I read that Nokia were making a big push in Europe by giving away 120,000 copies of Electronic Arts' FIFA 08. A game that is unashamedly a franchise on pretty much every gaming console on the planet – and one that leads commentators (such as the aforementioned Pocket Gamer) to draw direct comparisons of a mobile version of the game to those on home consoles and dedicated gaming devices such as the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP.
The classic N-Gage killer titles:
Pathway to Glory, System Rush, Pocket Kingdom
I’m sure that there will be a lot of goodwill, and because of the name recognition, a lot of people are going to discover they have the N-Gage platform on their phone. And having a strong named brand lets everyone know that Nokia is seriously in the game, but I can’t help flinching, at least a little, because it makes the direct comparison just too easy, and in a head-to-head it would be rare for a multifunction device to top a dedicated single task device.
Nokia have exposed a vulnerable flank here – if this pays off, then they’re certainly going to benefit, but if they are not careful, then they risk heading down the path of the original N-Gage, distracted by the competition. They’ve avoided it so far, and I hope this dalliance points to some more innovative thinking down the line.
Any platform lives and dies by the first party titles. Yes, the remakes and ports give people a comfort point to hold onto, but to become ‘big’ you need something more. You need something you do yourself. Arguably this is driven by the viewpoint of characters such as the Mario Bros (Nintendo), Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega) and Halo’s Master Chief (Microsoft Xbox). N-Gage needs a stand out character or franchise of their own to make this strategy work.
There are some options on this coming up, the obvious being whatever 'Project White Rock' is; although I suspect that while it might become a ‘must buy’ title, it’s going to be a solid front line trooper, just not a leader. Creebies is also in the frame, especially as there should be a lot of user generated content and games uploaded for everyone to challenge everyone else with. But actually, I think Nokia already have the character/franchise in the wings.
Snakes.
The Snake Game might be a basic programming exercise, but it is strongly associated with Nokia handsets, gracing almost every Nokia since 1998’s 5110. It was one of the games that turned round the perception of the original N-Gage and N-Gage QD from a joke to a serious gaming device (well for some people anyway). And it was innovative in its approach to distribution, with a viral option to send the full game to another N-Gage handset, along with Nokia making the full game available for free.
So if Nokia are looking to create a flagship title, if they’re looking to have a title that everyone can get, that everyone can share, that leverages the best of the N-Gage platform, then they should not only get Snakes Subsonic out there as fast as possible…
…they should make Snakes Subsonic free.
-- Ewan Spence, April 2008