Suddenly a lot of things have fallen into place. Why did Nokia persist with N-Gage for so long? Why did they spend so much money on their E3 stand? Ewan analyses their strategy and comes up with a compelling argument for N-Gage-compatible smartphones outselling PSPs and the like in the next 12 months.
Read on in the full article.
I really dont know why anyone is os suprised by this strategy, apart from the laymen. They announced plans along these lines many months ago.
One big mistake thos is the whole PSP and DS comparison. That will kill the platform in the eyes of consumers. Market yourself as the best cellular/mobile gaming platform available, then you got something to hold on to. Not crap like "multimedia computer" a la laptops, or "gaming device" as the psp.
Its a smartphone that you can play kick ass games on, nothing more nothing less.
Oh I'm not surprised at all - been shouting this for a while, BUt not a lot of peopel, even in the indusry, can either see this strategy or rate it. Personally I think they're wrong. What's telling is when Steve LItchfield pops up after editing the piece going "ahhhhh - now I see..." and that's more telling than anything. And I think when the new N-Gage CEO Gerard Wiener came on board they did implement that change from "Gaming device plus phone" to "phone with kick-ass games" and we're seeing the public results now.
From earlier postings here as a result to N-Gage related news I noticed that indeed there seems to be quite a number of people that don't like N-Gage and would be happy to see Nokia just admit complete defeat and burry it forever.
I aks myself: Why is that? Why this vehemence? Do they fear something, and if yes, what?
The thing is this: If Nokia and the companies writing N-Gage games write good games and make them available for good prices, they will be successful. If they don't, they won't be successful. Simple as that.
Now please tell me: Why should anybody be against good games, or even be afraid about them?
If you had a look at nokia's show at E3 and the coverage by joystiq it'd show two different pictures.
Nokia's E3 blog showed a lot of people and a lot of activity in the booth on all the three days,but when joystiq covered it the booth was empty!!!
Nokia was responsible for the PSP/DS/N-GAGE comparison..they started it by sayin "Why do you want to carry a GB and a cellphone separately,get an n-gage!!!"
This prompted everyone to think that this is a portable gaming device rather than a phone which has great games.
Present...Have a look at ONE and System Rush on N93.Its friggin' amazing and it has the perfect view for playing a fight-em up and racer..horizontal.
All they have to do is recompile the existing games(which is great by the way-PTG,PTG2,HIGH SEIZE,MHP,GLIMMERATI etc)so that its suitable for S60 3rd edition
Sorry for being OT but what are those awful advertisement pop-up that suddently appeared all over AAS 😡 ? I don't remember having ever seen that on AAS. This makes articles and forum posts completely unreadable. Whenever you move the mouse, one of those "context sensitive" pop up appears, hides the text and takes ages to disappear. Please, get rid of this non-sense! I don't mind advertisement banner (these i can block with AdBlock) but this context sensive crap really is the best way to kill an otherwise excellent web site.
These can be switched off by logging into the forum (and should be off for return visitors (i.e. shown to search visitors). There's also a turn off link at the bottom of the content pages of the site.
BTW blocking ads altogether is also not too good for us. This site is ad supported, it is adverts that pay the bills. If everyone blocked ads AAS would not exist. I do appreciate that some people don't like ads and are within their rights to block them, but bear in mind the implications...
Edit: It could of course be something else since I see you are logged into the forum.
Rafe wrote:These can be switched off by logging into the forum (and should be off for return visitors (i.e. shown to search visitors). There's also a turn off link at the bottom of the content pages of the site.
Hi Rafe. Thanks for bearing with me and apologies for having been a bit harsh on this one 🙄 You're indeed perfectly right, once logged in, all the ads have disappeared. The reason why i thought you had changed something is that i've always been constently logged in on AAS so i was never seeing the ads but today, for some reason, i've been logged out and saw those ads all other the place. That gave me a shock...
Rafe wrote:
BTW blocking ads altogether is also not too good for us. This site is ad supported, it is adverts that pay the bills. If everyone blocked ads AAS would not exist. I do appreciate that some people don't like ads and are within their rights to block them, but bear in mind the implications...
I'm aware of this and whenever i want to buy something online, i usually buy through the sponsored links on the web sites that i appreciate.
Feedback, even when it is harsh (an I don't think you were) is always invaluable. Like I said I'm a realist about blokcing ads. I know I've been know to do it 😊.
Back on topic:
What strikes me more than anything else is the liklihood of an N-Gage icon on a lot of S60 handsets out of the box. I think this potentially could open up gaming to a whole new audience (the curiosity factor, hey I've got it anyway). It removes the hardware barrier to entry. The problem for Sony, Nintendo et al is there is a limit to how many people will buy gaming centric devices. The fact that the PSP does more than just games is a testament to this. Nokia are also so doing some very smart stuff in terms of the game distribution (downloads straight onto the device or via a PC) and online community buildng. I was actually rather shocked by some of the coverage of E3 - dismissing or not mentioning Nokia is a fairly dumb thing to do (especially as aside from the Wii controller they were the only ones showing anything different in the innovation sense). The N-Gage hardware may have been a dud, but there were good things about this (a lot of the games were rather good), but the N-Gage platform could go way beyond anyone's expectations.
The N-Gage is dead. Long live N-Gage the platform!
As an aside I think it is very interesting Nokia kept the N-Gage brand rather than starting from fresh.
Hey, if SonyEricsson can slap brands like "Walkman" and "Cybershot" on their phones to sell whats already there, why cant Nokia do the same with teh N-Gage brand.
As for why they stuck with "N-Gage", i have this itching feeling in the back of my mind that they are planning to release another hardware solution for the brand. With the advanced technologies being implemented in handsets like the N93 and even the 770, they could easily devise an attractive gaming package with landscape orientation (hope youre listening Nokia) based on the afformentioned handsets.
In the end, its the games that count, so they need to work hard on developers and PR.
I was just gonna touch on that..the guys over at the forums are pretty much down coz' nokia have not launched a game-centric device after the QD.
I don't mind turning n-gage into a platform,but how can you expect to play games like one and CMR05 and System Rush with a N70 or others.
N93 is perfect device for gaming but still its a better camera phone..
Not too far in the future,i expect nokia to launch a game-centric device on the N series(ala N91(music),N93(camera)..)with similarities to the n-gage,exceptions being a landscape screen rather than a portrait,better internal memory and some king of emulator or code rework to play the older games😊
True Nokia gaming market share is nebulous at best. What percentage of Series 60 phone owners actually use PIM functionality beyond contact names and phone numbers? The same will apply to gaming. It will be difficult for Nokia to make money on games. Generally users will only play games they get for free from Nokia or the carriers. Carriers hoping to create a new significant revenue stream from selling/renting games will be sorely dissapointed.
Ehm, I even used (limited) PIM functionality on my Nokia 6110 ages ago. A lot of people use the PIM functionality even on non-smartphones. As for gaming, I have no exact figures, but the number of Java games sold isn't exactly low... As long as the games are there for the users the easily see and download, there is a market.