The reference hardware for which all Next Gen N-Gage games have been written is the Nokia N73, a slightly older Nseries phone. Many Nokia phones since then have been released which are technically the same or better, but which aren't yet part of the Next Gen N-Gage platform. Vote in our latest poll to tell us which of these "missing" phones most deserves a place in the Next Gen platform. (Those who want a bit of in-depth background information should read our earlier article on this topic.)
Read on in the full article.
i really don't see why the 5700 was excluded, or how about the e90 and the e65? definitely must haves to play n-gage - even if they are business oriented; doesnt mean those people don't deserve fun - plus @ nokia if you need max revenue and $$ include everyone - im not complaining, i have an n93 and soon enough an n81 but i dont think anyone who bought any other phone should be left out
I agree, it doesn't make much sense. There was a long discussion about this in another thread, and no one could come up with a theory to explain all the missed-out phones.
The best theory was that they've only picked phones with large screens: all of the officially compatible phones have 2.4 inch or larger screens, whereas the phones excluded have 2.2 inch or 2 inch screens.
However, the N75 and N76 both have 2.4 inch displays yet they have also been excluded from the new N-Gage platform.
Nokia N92 has huge 2.8 inches screen size as N95 8GB but it's excluded, what were Nokia people thinking?
still doesnt make sense, some phones can be linked up to tvs so if nokia wanted only large screened phones - add tv-out to all of them. it's not like the gba micro had a 2.4" screen and it still was a good hit, the e90 has a huge internal screen why not play games in it? what was the use of the gfx chip in the e90 then?
if people want to exclude the e-series because they are business oriented then exclude the n93 as it's photographer/golfer/movie-director oriented and not for games
what i thought of once before is that maybe nokia wanted extra sales - so if i bought a 5700 id go out and buy an n73 for the games - boosting the sales and increasing their base at the same time - but half the "normal"/"average" people would not opt for n-gage otherwise the guy in the office/school desk next to theirs will mock them - so the question really is: who is the person in charge of the decisions in nokia HQ?
I dont know why 5700 wasnt included on the list??? I think it is the best Symbian phone ever made;...and it is the cheapest Symbian Nokia! So, do you think if there is any possibillity to somehow tell Nokia to put 5700 on compatable list(we could write a petition...)?
In my country (Croatia) it has very good price(our operator Vip sells it for about 300euro); and a lot of people are going to buy this model.
I have N5700 since August(my brother has N73, but 5700 rules!!!); and I think it is the best phone ever made; and it SHOULD be included on N-Gage commpatable list!!!
5700 must be included (and N76). 5700 is the chapest Symbian phone and a lot of teenagers will buy it(and we know that the most of teenagers play mobile phone games). If Nokia don`t include it, they would lose a big part of NGage game coustamers...
"Nokia N92 has huge 2.8 inches screen size as N95 8GB but it's excluded, what were Nokia people thinking?"
I think that might be because the N92 was intended for watching DVB-H mobile TV services, but DVB-H isn't really available yet in most countries.
Here in Finland for example, DVB-H was supposed to roll out completely in 2007, but so far it's only really available in Helsinki.
"what i thought of once before is that maybe nokia wanted extra sales - so if i bought a 5700 id go out and buy an n73 for the games"
If they forced people to buy a separate device for games, most people would get a Nintendo DS or a PlayStation Portable, not a second phone.
If they were trying to encourage people to upgrade, why did they include a very old model like the N73 on the list?
None of it makes any sense, whatever way you look at it.
"I dont know why 5700 wasnt included on the list??? I think it is the best Symbian phone ever made;...and it is the cheapest Symbian Nokia!"
The 6120 (which is also not on the list) is even cheaper, about 250 euros brand new unlocked including taxes.
What looks funny to me is The Nokia E90 has a graphic chip just as in N93/i N95/8 GB also better internal screen and full keyboard, yet it's not in compatible list. Nokia can not just say it's a business model as it's S60 device just like the N95. They must tell us better reason than that. I still think they just wanna boot the N-series sell.
"I still think they just wanna boot the N-series sell."
That explanation doesn't work either though, because the N75, N76, N77 and N92 have all been excluded from the compatibility list.
None of this makes sense.
I suspect some of it to do with relative sales of the phone (in the target markets) and going after what is easiest first. The N73 and N95 in particular have been very big sellers. The Eseries last quarter sold 2 million against around 9 million for the Nseries for example. I would imagine the N75, N77 and N92 are excluded on the basis they haven't sold that many because they either specialised to one market or one technology.
After all they have to make sure everything works and it is easier doing this with a small list of devices than universal support. It'll be interesting to see whether there are limits placed on it (i.e. will it really stop you installing on a non-supported phone).
Clearly Nseries support was a priority presumably because Nokia deem owners of such phones more likely to be interested in N-Gage. Whether that is true or not is open to debate!
Sales must definitely count for something, that totally explains why the supposed "sore thumb" N73 is there, simply because so many people have bought it (and still buy it, its sim-free price has hardly dropped since launch so demand has probably stayed high).
Perhaps the N95 and N73 together actually account for the majority of the launch userbase?
But I'd be willing to bet the 6120 will outsell the N95 eventually, it seems to have been very popular with reviewers and visitors to AAS, it's excellent value for money, and in computing terms it's very similar to the N95.
If there's one absence from the list it's the 6120 that seems most puzzling, because it would probably expand the platform's userbase by millions (maybe eventually tens of millions). Such a huge expansion would bring in more than enough money to cover the costs of adding that model to the platform. On the other hand, going by the sales theory, maybe they're waiting to see how well it actually does sell in the medium term.
The frustrating thing is that there have been many good theories on this and the other thread, and they all seem to fit most of the phones, but none of them seem to fit all of the phones.
Agreed it would make sense to add the 6120 on sheer numbers terms... And to who to say they wont.
However I imagine they are sticking with Nseries for now since N-Gage is part of the Multimedia Group (if I understand thing correctly). Also for the user profile I mentioned above. i.e. Nseries users are more into this. The 6120 is selling well, but I wonder how many people are buying it because they want a phone rather than a multimedia computer / entertainment device.
I wonder if this the chnages to one single devices unit might not change things. Then there will much less seperation between the Multimedia and Mobile Phone group (well there wont be one!).
I wonder if this the chnages to one single devices unit might not change things. Then there will much less seperation between the Multimedia and Mobile Phone group (well there wont be one!).
Yes, that will be interesting. Presumably Nseries will become more like XpressMusic, a sub-brand which is occasionally added to key models rather than a separately-promoted unit of the company.
This reorganisation should (hopefully) do Nokia a lot of good, it makes no sense to have some of their best products being overlooked by their publicity people just because they don't have an N before their model number. If the 6120 had been called the N50, one suspects review websites would have been falling over themselves to get one.
In fact, if anyone from Nokia is reading this: get a 6120, add wifi, call it the N50 and you'll have a big hit on your hands.
I would guess it comes down to the hardware used within the device.
The N95 and others are based on the TI OMAP 24 series processors with hardware graphics accelerator. This may have something to do with which platforms will be supported.
"I would guess it comes down to the hardware used within the device.
The N95 and others are based on the TI OMAP 24 series processors with hardware graphics accelerator. This may have something to do with which platforms will be supported."
N73 and N81/8GB don't have hardware graphic accelerator. E90 has it, yet excluded.
But how is the system rush evolution going to work on n81 and n73? I have tried the system rush evolution demo on my nokia 6290 and it doesn't work well. It lags very very much. Nokia 6290 has similar processor/what ever with nokia n81. 6290, n81 and n73 have no 3d hw acceleration.
The N95 and others are based on the TI OMAP 24 series processors with hardware graphics accelerator.
I don't know why this keeps coming up, because it's just not true. The N95 and N93 have the 3D chip, but the N81 and N73 don't.
In fact the N73 is actually much worse technically than most of the phones on the poll, which have 50% faster processors.
But how is the system rush evolution going to work on n81 and n73? I have tried the system rush evolution demo on my nokia 6290 and it doesn't work well.
Either they'll downgrade the graphics for SRE on all handsets, or they'll make two versions (one that uses 3D hardware, one that doesn't).
3D hardware doesn't have to affect gameplay, it usually just means the 3D graphics look a bit nicer.
When 3D cards first appeared on the PC, it was very common for a game to contain two versions of itself, one for PCs with 3D cards and one for PCs without.
3 points;
6120 Classic should definitely be added. You only need to see it running Quake to see how powerful it is, full textured 3D graphics at full frame rate.
Secondly, has anyone out there managed to get the System Rush Evolution demo working on the 6120? It came up with an error when I tried it, couldn't find OpenGL config for that handset or something. Very frustrating, probably a minor change in the source code would be needed.
Lastly, is anyone at AAS going to pass the results of this poll onto your Nokia contacts? I sincerely hope so, as that would obviously get our voices heard.
I was always a dedicated Ngage fan. I bought all the games and played a lot. I've since moved on through various Symbian phones and now use E61 because I do need a business phone. But I've been excluded and that pisses me off. The E61/i seems to me to really be the perfect gaming device, what with the landscape screen and the qwerty keyboard, especially for racing games and flight similators etc. Ah, Nokia. You really seem determined to see Ngage fail...again
c'mon NOKIA we need 5700 to be added......after all its a teen phone plus has a pretty good processor...........and much better than n73
plz plz plz
Ajck
That's really interesting. Now I get the same error with my nokia 6290 when I'm trying to launch the system rush evolution demo. It still worked month ago.
Nokia 6120 is not more powerful than 6290. Quake works fine on 6290 too.
Oops. It still works. You have to get it from other place.
krisse wrote:I don't know why this keeps coming up, because it's just not true. The N95 and N93 have the 3D chip, but the N81 and N73 don't.In fact the N73 is actually much worse technically than most of the phones on the poll, which have 50% faster processors.
Either they'll downgrade the graphics for SRE on all handsets, or they'll make two versions (one that uses 3D hardware, one that doesn't).
3D hardware doesn't have to affect gameplay, it usually just means the 3D graphics look a bit nicer.
When 3D cards first appeared on the PC, it was very common for a game to contain two versions of itself, one for PCs with 3D cards and one for PCs without.
Ok, so the N73 and N81 may not have the 3D accelerator. This would suggest that the Ngage platform would be based on Java JSR184. A 3D API. This enables the developer to write a game for a single target (Java) and if there is 3D hardware available, it would take advantage of it. If not, then it will use a software engine.
3D accelerators in mobile phones make a huge difference. You get nice features such as Anti-Aliasing and all the other perks of taking away a significant amount of the work load away from the main core. You are right in saying that good graphics doesn't equal good gameplay. But we have come to a point where for the game to contain more content and be playable on the higher resolution displays, we need more CPU Mhz.
Something like half a dozen N-Gage compatible phones have been publicly announced, but that doesn't mean that's it. We're adding handsets to that list as fast as we can. Nseries devices (or Multimedia Computers, according to Nokia jargon) are in the front line because of being technically high end, but also internal politics. N-Gage is a product of Nokia Multimedia, so it should be understandable why the devices of Nokia Multimedia - Nseries - are first in line. Adding and certifying N-Gage compatibility is some added effort to the product program of a device. Nseries product programs have had most interest to gain N-Gage compatibility, but again, it does not end there. We are closely working with the Mobile Phones guys, making the four digit devices. Enterprise Solutions making Eseries, have so far been less active, but we are looking forward to working with them also to add Eseries devices to N-Gage.
Well, the Nokia N81 processor does actually contain a 3D Acceleration Chip. In these latest Nseries N-gage enabled models, there are two different processors which are being utilized. There is the Freescale dual core processor chipset which is integrated in phones like the N95 and N82. And the there is also the single cored Freescale processor chipset present in the N81. Although the Dual-cores processor runs at a lower speed of 369Mhz than the Single-cores 399Mhz - it contains a seperate 3D Acceleration Chip. Then 1-dimensional human thinking would conclude that the N81 only has a single wit no 3D Chip WHAT SO EVER but this is not the case. The chipset prevelent in the N81 at 399Mhz DOES ACTUALLY CONTAIN 3D ACCELERATION HARDWARE. Yup take a deep breath, its true. It is stated as being single-cored because the 3D acceleration is running at a very low clockrate of below 40Mhz... so if you actually think about it, Nokia COULD probably OVERCLOCK this speed to a higher rate with a firmware upgrade? THEN N81 WOULD BE THE BEST N-GAGE DEVICE WITH 3D HARDWARE FINALLY WORKING! Ayo, wonder why they aint doing this people... or maybe their scared that the more acclaimed elite - N82 and N95 - would be put in grave danger!