In another superb and comprehensive piece, our very own Krisse analyses the successes and (mainly) the failures of the original Nokia N-Gage, then looks at the way the new next-gen gaming platform will directly address each problem. It's all looking rosy - apart from the name! Krisse explains...
Read on in the full article.
TV out should be also mentioned 😊 That makes it a really portable console. Use TV while at home, use small screen while in bus/train/plane.
Good article.
Remains to be asked: When? I mean, I've been waiting for that next gen gaming phone for ages. Now that I'm spoiled through use of small devices with brilliant QVGA screens, there's no going back to the N-Gage - yet still, I never enjoyed a phone as much as that one! Using it was fun, no matter whether it was games, MP3 or smartphone-ish applications.
One thing though that I don't get about Nokia's logic: When they launched their N-Series, the N-Gage cross-compatibility was a big PR thing (tbh. I even thought that THAT was the main idea behind the N-Series anyway). Yet there hasn't been a single port other than snakes so far. AND worst of all, many N-Series phones feature no 8-way directional pad or joystick which means they'll be just as useless for gaming as all those Windows Mobile phones are. So, what was the point behind the N-Series again?
"TV out should be also mentioned"
It would definitely be a great thing to have, and it's possible (although not confirmed yet ) that at least two models with TV Out will be compatible with the Next Gen games: the N93/N93i and the N95.
"Remains to be asked: When?"
Oh no it doesn't! 😉
The official N-Gage blog recently stated that the Next Gen platform would launch in September 2007, and previous interviews with Nokia officials suggest that at least two of the compatible models are on sale right now. They didn't say which models they were, but personally I'd guess they're the N93 and N95.
"en? I mean, I've been waiting for that next gen gaming phone for ages."
There is no actual gaming phone as such, and there never has been. N-Gage was a 100% standard Nokia smartphone which had a horizontal casing and some DRM software to unlock the games.
The Next Gen will be on a range of different normal-looking smartphones, instead of being restricted to one or two models. There should be about six models which will support the platform at launch, with more appearing all the time as new S60 phones are released.
"One thing though that I don't get about Nokia's logic: When they launched their N-Series, the N-Gage cross-compatibility was a big PR thing"
I don't know where people get this idea from, because it has no basis in truth.
Gaming hasn't been mentioned by Nokia in any of their statements about Nseries. Nowhere in any of the Nseries publicity did they ever even mention N-Gage or even the word "gaming".
The Nseries were meant as multimedia devices, for taking and sending high quality pictures and video as well as accessing multimedia over the internet. All of the advertisements were centred entirely around the multimedia features.
Watch the Nseries commercials again, they're full of people taking pictures, viewing pictures, sending them to each other, listening to music, watching video etc.
The publicity about next gen N-Gage might have mentioned that it would run on Nseries phones, but none of the publicity about Nseries even mentioned N-Gage.
"(tbh. I even thought that THAT was the main idea behind the N-Series anyway)"
Absolutely not.
Most people have absolutely no time for games so it would have been crazy to launch a huge new brand purely to try and enter the gaming world.
As I said in the article, there are 1000 million phones sold ever year, but only about 25 million games consoles every year. Gaming is the pursuit of a very small minority of people compared to using phones or using multimedia. Far more people buy videos or CDs than ever buy games, multimedia is a far larger industry than games.
Even people who buy a games console on average only buy about 4 to 7 games for it before chucking it away. Compare that to DVD players or CD players where people buy dozens of discs on average.
The vast majority of people buy smartphones to use them as pocket computers for things like email, the internet, music, video etc. Most people aren't interested in games.
It's exactly the same as with PCs, most people buy them just for the web, for word processing etc. Only a minority of PC users ever buy commercial games, even if they occasionally play Minesweeper.
"So, what was the point behind the N-Series again?"
It certainly wasn't gaming if that's what you think. The point was to have a range of multimedia computers, which is what Nokia actually calls them officially.
September 2007? That'd be awesome.
"There is no actual gaming phone as such"
Gee, yes I know. What I meant with "gaming phone" is "a phone that is truly suitable for mobile gaming". The N-Gage was so far the only truly "gaming-oriented phone" because:
a) form: you can hold it comfortably when playing games (unlike candibars aso. which are a pain to game on (got one, done that, no thanks))
b) hardware: it has a 8 (well, 9)-way pad (no diagonal steering = no good for gaming)
c) hard-/software: it accepted multiple simultaneous keypresses (many phones don't, which makes gaming yet again a bit more impossible on em)
d) software: it's smartphone OS allowed playing many games, not just such "made for N-Gage" (imo. a dumphone for gaming would suck badly).
Does the N95 have an 8-way pad? From what I could find through google, it seems it's yet another (useless) 4-way thing. 😞
"I don't know where people get this idea from, because it has no basis in truth. Gaming hasn't been mentioned by Nokia in any of their statements about Nseries. Nowhere in any of the Nseries publicity did they ever even mention N-Gage or even the word "gaming"."
E3 2006: Nokia booth consisted largely of the various N-Series phones running N-Gage games on em:
h**p://press.nokia.c*m/PR/200605/1050108_5.h*ml
h**p://press.nokia.c*m/PR/200605/1050112_5.h*ml
h**p://w*w.engadget.c*m/2006/05/12/nokias-e3-booth-tour/
(sorry bout all the *, wasn't able to post this otherwise)
I know that they market the N-Series as multimedia computers only NOW but they sure did use gaming as a sales argument back then. Guess that's got to do with the downfall of the N-Gage and the collapsing game sales. Marketing is flexible, it twists, spins and bends over time.
As for the gaming industry, I think you're grossly underrating them. After all, games make more money than movies nowadays. About time the mobile computer producers (aka the smartphone industry) realizes that and starts pushing out hardware that's (not just but also) gaming oriented.
"a) form: you can hold it comfortably when playing games (unlike candibars aso. which are a pain to game on (got one, done that, no thanks))"
I honestly think it depends on the game, and it depends on the phone.
The N93 can be used as a vertical phone, but it can also be folded in two and used as a horizontal phone, somewhat like the Game Boy Advance SP:
http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/reviews/images/n93/n93gamesconsole.jpg
The N95 can also be used horizontally, and the latest update to the Symbian S60 user interface will allow all new S60 smartphones to have their displays set to horizontal mode if the user wishes.
Also, if a game has been designed for smartphones right from the beginning, it can suit almost any layout. For example I reviewed the excellent smartphone game K-Rally on a Nokia E61, which is a blackberry-style keyboard smartphone meant mainly for emailing. But because the game's controls were designed with a phone in mind and were completely customisable, I had no problems controlling the game at all.
The game controls on a smartphone won't be as good as on a dedicated portable console, but then a dedicated console can't do a fraction of the things that a smartphone can. You have to decide what you personally want more: one smartphone that does it all but with some compromises, or half a dozen separate devices without compromises but lots of extra bulk.
Changing the format that games run on has always involved compromise, the first Game Boy had terrible graphics and a really awful display compared to home consoles of the time, but that was the compromise needed to make the games portable. As it turned out, a lot of people were willing to make that compromise because they valued the portability so much.
"b) hardware: it has a 8 (well, 9)-way pad (no diagonal steering = no good for gaming)"
A good point, but in most games (especially ones designed from the ground up for smartphones) four way pads should be good enough. Snakes for example plays just as well on a four-way pad as it does on an eight-way pad, in fact I don't think it even accepts diagonal inputs. It was one of the best-reviewed games on N-Gage, and was designed entirely with smartphones in mind (that's why they embedded it on several S60 models after its N-Gage release).
We think we need diagonals because games platforms have always had them, but the best game designers will always design controls to suit whatever platform they're writing for. The Nintendo DS has many games such as Nintendogs, Canvas Curse and Animal Crossing that use NO buttons at all for their controls, but they manage to be very playable because they were designed entirely with the DS in mind.
"c) hard-/software: it accepted multiple simultaneous keypresses (many phones don't, which makes gaming yet again a bit more impossible on em)"
The latest smartphones do accept multiple keypresses, and the ones that don't can often be patched to accept them. For example until recently the N93 didn't support multiple keypresses, however the latest firmware apparently fixes this.
"d) software: it's smartphone OS allowed playing many games, not just such "made for N-Gage" (imo. a dumphone for gaming would suck badly)."
Well, the N-Gage's OS was absolutely identical to the one in other Nokia smartphones, that's why I said N-Gage wasn't a gaming phone as such.
The Symbian OS isn't exactly a gaming feature but a smartphone feature.
If you take apart an N-Gage "classic", for example, you will see that even if it supported 8-way controller behaviour, there are only 5 domes (4 directions + center), so the diagonal directions are simulated by detecting two adjacent domes being pressed down.
In other words, 8-way does not necessarily require a true 8-way controller; just that it is possible to simultaneously press and detect adjacent directions.
"If you take apart an N-Gage "classic", for example, you will see that even if it supported 8-way controller behaviour, there are only 5 domes (4 directions + center), so the diagonal directions are simulated by detecting two adjacent domes being pressed down."
True, but interestingly the same is true of the PlayStation controller as well. The D-pad of the PS1, PS2, PS3 and PSP consists of four direction buttons, and diagonals are obtained by pressing two of the buttons at once:
Detecting 8 directions for games clearly doesn't require more than 4 domes if the entire PlayStation series has managed with 4 domes.
The problem is that the N-Gage and QD are the only (as far as I know) smartphones that do actually detect the diagonals, and many models physically prevent you from pressing two domes at once so they couldn't even be patched by firmware updates.
I think it's a fair point that Nokia ought to reintroduce diagonal detection onto their direction pads and joysticks, it would make game emulation more authentic, ports of games from other systems easier, and also make using applications such as the browser more flexible if there are more directions to scroll in.
the 6680 supported diagonals and was great for playing games, especially using the gameboy emulator V-Boy.
But of course by the time the 6680 was superceded by the N70 etc diagonal movement had been removed, which was a step backward IMHO.
I've never bothered much with games on a smartphone since
