The Register is carrying those all important sales figures for the Nokia N-Gage. Week 1 = 500 units. Compare this to Week 'whatever' for the Gameboy Advance to be around the 14,000 mark. The big question is how many were sold with a contract through the phone shops. Nokia isn't saying...
The N-Gage 500
I've never been totally convinced by the N-Gage but I'm surprised by the lack of marketing by Nokia. Even what there is seems strange. Most stores now have working display models but the advertising that goes with it only seems to mention the games.
If I did not know about it I would not even assume that it was also a phone.
It does not mention it has bluetooth for multi player games.
It does not mention it can download and run other software apart from games cartridges.
It does not mention that it has PDA functionality and can be synced with a PC.
It dont remember it mentioning a MP3 player or built in Radio.
About �230 is steep for a handheld games console but not bad when you take its other functions into account.
In our main Game store in Bristol (we seem to have 3 very close together) it does not look like they've sold a single game as the display unit always seems to be full of all software titles.
Originally posted by langdona
In our main Game store in Bristol (we seem to have 3 very close together) it does not look like they've sold a single game as the display unit always seems to be full of all software titles.
Here in Amsterdam the display units at the mobile phone retailers only have mock-up cases. If you buy a game, they give you the real case.
And as a far as marketing is concerned, tv commercials are good to introduce a new product, but it is far more effective when you see a friend using it. I've already convinced three friends to buy the N-Gage by showing what it can do.
Not suprised. - how many game shops are actually selling the N-gage. Its all in the phone shops in the UK.
I agree with both of the above posts 😊
I think word of mouth is the best way of telling people about a device although its not the quickest. I still think Nokia's advertising could be a lot better.
I think Game is probably the most expensive place I've seen the N-Gage in and they don't have any phone contract discounts. So they probably wont sell very many of them.
I'm still dubious about how well the N-Gage is doing at the moment though.
They got the N-Gage here when it was officialy released.Few stores have it.The price is in the range of 340 to 390 euros which is (quite)a bit over the top.No commercials at all!