The official N-Gage Blog has just posted a message confirming that the Next Gen platform won't go live until December, but it might also have some extra games added to the launch lineup. You can buy the compatible phones right now, but the game downloads won't start until next month.
Read on in the full article.
Not a great lost, I think. After play with Nintendo DS Lite, N-Gage platform should do a lot to be an alternative.
men thats a pain in the ass,,i want it now!now!!
I think limiting the N-Gage to purely N-Series phones is a big big mistake, you�d get so much more coverage if you expanded it to models such as the 6120 and the 6110. I work at a allphones (Australia�s biggest mobile retail chain) and know for a fact they are nokia�s biggest selling phones outside of N95. You guys seriously need some focus, if its going to be N-Series only, then have it on phones with 3d chips only and launch some graphics heavy games. Why release N-Gage on an average spec N73 and not on a E65 (which also sold by the bucket loads, despite being an Business phone), 6120 (which is so cheap on a Hutch/3 cap plan) or the 6110, hell or even the E90 since it has the hardware chip already.
Nokia released such awesome hardcore games on the original N-Gage platform, I can�t help but feel (looking at the launch titles) that Nokia is shooting themselves in the foot again� Remember everyone has only 2 feet.
Pzkfw5, I totally agree they need to include as many models as possible, all compatible hardware should have the N-Gage platform available to it. AAN did an in-depth article a couple of months ago all about this topic saying pretty much exactly what you just said:
http://www.allaboutngage.com/features/item/Where_the_heck_are_all_the_phones.php
I'd be particularly keen to see N-Gage on the 6120, because that seems to be selling extremely well. All About Symbian gets many many visitors to its 6120 articles, often more than any other phone including the N95, and for many many weeks the 6120 review was the most popular page on the site.
However, it seems from recent statements that Nokia have actually said they are not going to limit this to just Nseries:
http://www.n-gage.com/support/faq.html
"Please note that Nokia will continue to announce N-Gage compatibility with a wide range of S60 Nokia devices on an ongoing basis. N-Gage compatibility is not limited to Nokia Nseries devices." (my emphasis)
I think what they're going to do is add N-Gage to new S60 models from here on in, rather than adding it to any more existing models. It may be that this is easier to do from a testing point of view, or maybe there's some kind of company politics we don't know about.
The reason we keep hearing about Nseries in connection with N-Gage is because the division which does N-Gage is Nokia Multimedia, and Nokia Multimedia are also the people who do Nseries. Nokia as a whole is reorganising soon though, with all the phone manufacturing being put in one division, and all the software development in another (with a third division for promotional activity).
Pzkfw5 wrote:Nokia released such awesome hardcore games on the original N-Gage platform, I can’t help but feel (looking at the launch titles) that Nokia is shooting themselves in the foot again…
Did you look at the LAUNCH titles of the original N-Gage when making that comparison?
The 2003 launch titles on the original N-Gage were AWFUL, far far far far far worse than the launch titles on the Next Gen. The good games on the original N-Gage didn't come until late 2004/2005, and by then it was too late because people were ignoring the platform and shops refused to stock the new games. No one really knew they existed, which was a shame because they were darn good.
Games like Puyo Pop and Puzzle Bobble Vs didn't even have custom menus, they were just quick and dirty ports that cost US$40 when they didn't even deserve to cost US$4. There wasn't a single exclusive on the original N-gage's launch lineup, it was entirely made up of ports of extremely old games from other systems. (The first exclusives didn't come until 2004.)
Next Gen compares very favourably with original gen when it comes to launch games: there are twice as many Next Gen launch games, including many first party exclusives and brand new third party titles, and the price of each Next Gen game is about a fifth of what it was at the original gen launch. On top of that, new games will always be available to anyone who wants them because they're sold as downloads, so there will be no problem about shops "dropping" the N-Gage because they won't be involved at all.
Krisse it's good to see you still absolutely hate the N-Gage. The more things change the more they stay the same.
The N-Gage Titles were awful? Yes they were but then the QD was launched with Tomb Raider and Tony Hawk. Then as you said the titles started to flow. At the moment this N-Gage 2.0 seems like a shambles mainly because of the 50 people who actually use Symbian. Put the N-Gage titles on EVERY symbian phone? Oh god yes 4 way d-pad and one fire button for the win! Basically what you want is Java 2.0 exclusive for Symbian.
Face the facts Symbian is under fire from Microsoft, Apple and now Google. I would be amazed if Symbian had any market share in two years.
Dont rubbish one of my favourite consoles just to promote your pathetic OS
krisse wrote:Did you look at the LAUNCH titles of the original N-Gage when making that comparison?The 2003 launch titles on the original N-Gage were AWFUL, far far far far far worse than the launch titles on the Next Gen. The good games on the original N-Gage didn't come until late 2004/2005, and by then it was too late because people were ignoring the platform and shops refused to stock the new games. No one really knew they existed, which was a shame because they were darn good.
Games like Puyo Pop and Puzzle Bobble Vs didn't even have custom menus, they were just quick and dirty ports that cost US$40 when they didn't even deserve to cost US$4. There wasn't a single exclusive on the original N-gage's launch lineup, it was entirely made up of ports of extremely old games from other systems. (The first exclusives didn't come until 2004.)
Next Gen compares very favourably with original gen when it comes to launch games: there are twice as many Next Gen launch games, including many first party exclusives and brand new third party titles, and the price of each Next Gen game is about a fifth of what it was at the original gen launch. On top of that, new games will always be available to anyone who wants them because they're sold as downloads, so there will be no problem about shops "dropping" the N-Gage because they won't be involved at all.
I bet everyone who visits this website has seen and heard abo
ut both launches. there isnt a single thread in here without n-gage in it. now about the launches. we had games like tomb raider and tony hawk's pro skater on the launch last time. in my opinion two good games and sold pretty well. many people bought the n-gage on the launch day and that was their game of choice. both had high liking and have had numerous tournaments for them. a sure sign they were popular. this launch has three pets games - the first had puzzle and puyo pop which is better? id probably go for the pets but it's still insane. as for the ports factor. the original n-gage launch had ports from playstation 1. the next gen n-gage has ports from java. doesnt take a two year old to choose one over the other. oh and krisse in case you missed it - the choice would probably be playstation 1. now let's take a step back. where are the exclusives of next gen? all have been announced but none have dates. so it is safe to say next gen's exclusives will also come a year after the java ports. old gen launched at exactly the time nokia predicted. next gen has been announced since e3 and n-gage player awards chat 2005. and we will see it in jan 2008. is that 3 years of delay? as for being happy that the download system was implemented; payload was a flop system and most people hated it. not many people spend their money on downloads and most people got just payload as it was the only way to get it. everyone said the implementation was bad.
so before you bash the launch of a system, look at the system you are promoting krisse. both launches are awful but any moron or average joe on the "high street" as you'd call it would prefer the original. it had titles that were known like tony hawk's at least, and i didnt have to suffer the embarassment of exclaiming "YAY I MADE BABIES ON MY CELL PHONE WITH CREEBIES!" only a goon would prefer this gen launch.
if you compare prices. sure last gen's games were expensive. but this gen's devices are enough to buy a second hand car or to pay a month's rent for some people. so if you compare prices, remember which gen is really more expensive.
p.s. sorry for mentioning java on the all about symbian website - it must have upset you a lot.