Following on from the discussion from Steve and Rafe at the start of the week on the benefits of the S60 platform, I was wondering how this is going to apply to the (wordy) “Next Generation Mobile Gaming Platform”. Nokia has been blazing a trail with the N-Gage for many a year now, yet nobody seems to be following them.

The reason for this thought is that last weekend I was doing some lecturing work on marketing at Edinburgh University, and the one thing that stopped people dead and got them wondering “what’s that?” was when my phone rang. For my sins, I’m still using an original N-Gage (no need to go into the details why, lets say it’s sufficient for everything I need) and the Taco was an absolute show stopper. Everyone started asking questions about it, wondering what exactly it was.

So what do I (and what should Nokia) draw from that? Put simply, the N-Gage is a head turning device which at launch failed to light up the gaming world – the press simply roasted it on a spit. But for the consumer, it seems to have completely passed them by. Watching this phone, or was it a Gameboy (yes, they used that term) do everything that we know a Series 60 phone can do and they were all sold – on a three year old phone.

Now, think back to Steve’s experiences with someone assessing the N90 in a few minutes, realising it was a camera and video phone. Pick up an N-gage style device and it’s going to be clear that they’ve picked up a games machine – it’s the right shape, it’s got the controls, and I have to assume that any next gen gaming device (as opposed to the generic platform) is going to ship with a landscape orientated screen, and will have an immediately obvious space to put in game cards.

And this is going to cause a huge marketing problem.

Nokia may have the next generation gaming platform ready, the games all being slowly developed, but the second they release another device that looks like a Gameboy or a Playstation Portable, the gaming press are going to point, laugh, spout a pithy headline about the N-Gage, and take every chance to kick it before it has a chance to get up.

In my mind, that means Nokia will hold off on a gaming device as long as possible. When everything is lined up, the game titles, the online distribution, the network support and online portals, the OTA multiplayer support, then they need to make an all out, massive push in the space of two weeks to get the phone into as many hands as possible – especially on the street. They need to get public support before the magazines get a chance to destroy it – if the public take to it, the magazines will use that as the story and not the “here we go - taco time again”.

And while they may be attached to the N-Gage brand name, the press are going to use it as the first available stick to beat Nokia with, no matter what they do. If Nokia can crack that little PR problem, then the next gen gaming platform might actually have a worthwhile gaming device in the eyes of the world.