The current run of poor N-gage games is to be expected, argues Ewan. Every games platform has this problem, it's just a question of maturity and of time. The launch titles for N-Gage classic were worse and even those for the bestselling Sony PSP were comparable. What do you think of N-Gage so far and do you agree with Ewan? Comments welcome.
Read on in the full article.
so far all the ngage titles are really poor. The only hope for ngage gamers is "One - whos next".
Nokia, you have to tell developers a quality standarts or the ngage 2 did as same as the first generation. You may even sponsor parts of games development.
Reset Generation might be good.
Nothing beats Colin McRae Rally on the original N-Gage, I have yet to see a mobile rally game that comes close.
well every console system has its good and bad games and the ngage platform is no exception. There will undoubtedly be great games to come if the demand is there. I think the big companies are watching cautiously before entering the arena but since there is already a hack on the games, they might think twice before entering this market. Nokia would probably release a fix for the client at the same time they release the N73/N93 ngage version to counteract the hack?
However, a major problem we as developers face is the ROI,
In short it costs alot to produce the sorts of products you are asking for, yet people dont appear to want to pay anything close to a realistic price. Why do you think other gaming platform titles cost $30, $40, $50... yet a mobile app has to be $10, $15...
Basically, you pays your money, you get what you pay for...
As much as I would like to agree with you i cant.
N-Gage is a second generation platform and as such Nokia should have learnt enough valuable lessons from the original N-Gage launch - and the games industry as a whole.
Most successful second generation platforms have an existing user base that can play the games they already own from the 1st generation on the new platform (e.g. PS1 games on PS2, Xbox games - or at least some of them - on Xbox 360, Game Boy Advance on DS)
This does two things, gives existing fans the opportunity to continue to play their favorite titles and provides a back catalogue of cheaper games that new users can experiment with while the 2nd generation games are developed.
I am a fan of Ngage and really want it to work but right now Nokia are making a real mess of it.
The new games are not only poor they actually lack the quality and depth of the first generation titles. Titles i bought but can no longer play. Do you honestly think the PS2 would have been such a massive success if it couldnt play PS1 games and all the new titles were lower quality ?.
To make matters worse if i upgrade my firmware this week i run the risk of potentially losing the games i bought last week and if not the games, my saved progress or arena points.
I understand that the game may have changed for Nokia and they are more interested in casual gaming but you dont build a new customer base by kicking your existing ones in the balls.
I waited a year for the new N-Gage titles but i think Nokia have missed the boat. I will seriously be considering the new iphone when it is released.
The biggest cock-up of all with N-Gage is that it is NOT included on firmware on either the N78 or N96, and the current client won't work the n78 or N96 either.
Utter. Utter, madness. For N-Gage to become a success it should be pre-installed on all newly released/announced phones, it's not.
How long since the N78 and N96 were announced ? I can't believe that Nokia have not got N-Gage working and pre-installed on these devices.
It's not quality of games that will be N-Gage's downfall, it will be Nokia themselves.
True, the ngage 2 platform is not looking good at the moment and if Nokia doesn't "refresh" it soon, i doubt the worst for it. I still think that a dedicated gaming phone would have proved to be more competitive than an actual application.
Sure, the idea to target a worldwide audience might be good but, think about it, how many people who owes a N95/N82/N73...etc would really purchase a game for the mobile? Very low indeed coz most people are more the fashion mobile phone type of users than mobile gamers. A dedicated phone would have re-inforced the idea of the Ngage for a true & fresh revival, and group the old ngage fans with the new ones. By merging these groups of fans together on a dedicated gaming phone, they would have created a new emerging fans database which would surely be loyal to them as Sony has done with the Playstation, and Nintendo with the Gameboy.
I don't think Nokia needs to worry about the current crop of games. They will improve with time. I think, what Nokia has faltered this time too, only due to their policy. Their policy is nothing less than that of an insane man.
First of all, how can you plan to have your platform as an application which is not ready? They should have developed the application first. And then these runtime problems could be identified and eliminated pretty easily. The policy should be, take care of the vessel first, if it's perfect, it will manage the water better. What they did is just the reverse. Today, most of the problems faced by the platform, I feel, are due to the N-Gage client (which is probably one of the worst coded programs by Nokia). Be it 'KERN EXEC' errors, be it lack of support for N73/N93, be it the 10K bug, the buggy application is behind everything.
Secondly, Nokia haven't tried to address the issues of GAMERS, like saving games, transferring game licenses and saves to newer devices (at least the transfer service is not ready).
Thirdly, the inability to pay for games (except using credit card) in many countries. Simply, Nokia were not ready before N-Gage went live. All the First Accesses and other beta tests were useless, when they hadn't even fixed these basic issues. When you can't pay for the game, piracy is bound to creep in. And locking only one method of payment is not much better than the earlier generation. Seems like Nokia were busy creating flash presentations for N-Gage throughout 2006 and (first half of) 2007, not finalizing deals with operators.
Fourthly, their PR sucks these days, and they falter repeatedly on due dates (Needs no citings. I am suggesting AAN/AAS to start a contest: Tell us when Nokia could maintain their release date for the last time). They are not even revealing what is actually happening to the support for devices like N73/N93/N78/N96. And their employees say what they don't know. For example, see this article:
http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/N-Gage/N-Gage+(next+gen+platform)/news.asp?c=5917Here, Jaakko Kaidesoja says
"We promised the N73 earlier, but we found some memory issues, as it has a lower memory spec than other devices," says Kaidesoja.
Can I ask Mr. Kaidesoja, didn't you know that N73 has lower amount of RAM when you people promised an earlier release for that device? Doesn't this prove that you people were not ready for the launch, however long time you've taken.
Fifthly (yes, there is something more), they are too much concerned about the DRM in the games. They should have noticed that big gaming companies like Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo are not being able to stop piracy, why are you tickling the pirates to be extra interested about your product. I want to site the example of two companies dealing with mobile software, and their profits seem to be decent or more than that. One is Epocware, they hardly have any DRM protection, they only issue a serial number for each copy of the software. The interesting thing is, once a serial key is issued, that can work in any device where the application is installed. So, there's not even the need of doing anything. Another one is Gameloft. They don't have any DRM at all. They give out retail copies to those who buy the games and these copies can be easily shared. Do you think these companies make paltry or no profit? Actually the scheme of N-Gage is such that it's easier to buy than to install those cracked games. Why spend on useless DRM (which will be cracked anyway)?
If N-Gage succeeds after all these, I will be very happy, not because I am a Nokia fanboy, but because with N-Gage we get more of those native titles, at least I get something to play with. If this iteration also fails, I hope Nokia will think about these issues prior to the launch of N-Gage 3 (if they again try to take over the gaming market).
My biggest complaint about ngage is the pathetic demos. System rush had a decent demo. But all the games that give you 45 seconds of play is lame. I have bought 3 games so far. Hooked, snakes, and space impact. I beat snakes and space impact in a day or two. Horrible games. Hooked was good, as all games from infinite dreams are. I pretty much washed up ngage as a failure. They need to get the ball rolling, and give out some real demos, and real games.