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Updated version of N-Gage application released

11 replies · 5,394 views · Started 05 October 2008

There's a new version of the N-Gage app available for all compatible phones which (amongst other things) fixes the infamous 10,000 points bug. You can download the new version straight onto your device by opening the app, selecting "Options" and then "Check For Updates". Alternatively you can download the new version onto your PC and then install it manually, which you can do from the official website's "Get N-Gage" section. You can read more about the new version over on the official forums. (via the Official N-Gage Blog)

Read on in the full article.

When is ngage going to release their next game???
Why are they taking so long?
any idea when ngage is going to release Worms World Party?
Also I can't uderstand why the released the N85 and N79 without a graphic acceleration support? I feel the N85 would have become a super super star with Graphic acceleration support it has everything accept a very important future proof tool for gamming?
No mater what you say Tzer2 about not needing accelaration support but we cannot run away from the fact that in the new future gaming want be good without accelaration support and if you see most of the other companies are already supporting acceleration support, so does Nokia wants to be eleminated from the competion, Nokia will have to take this topic seriously!!!
What do you think about this !!

When is ngage going to release their next game???
Why are they taking so long?

Probably because it takes a while to test every game on every variant of every phone with every firmware version.

Also I can't uderstand why the released the N85 and N79 without a graphic acceleration support?

One good reason: Most people don't play games on their phones, so a graphics accelerator would have been a complete waste of money for most users.

but we cannot run away from the fact that in the new future gaming want be good without accelaration support and if you see most of the other companies are already supporting acceleration support

These aren't games consoles, they're phones. Graphics acceleration makes little difference to most people one way or the other.

But even with gaming, things like System Rush and Bounce and COTD look absolutely fine without acceleration, they look as good as anything on the Nintendo DS for example.

There's also the important point that 2D games like Reset Generation or Worms World Party wouldn't benefit from acceleration at all, because they aren't in 3D.

I also think the strength of graphics to decide games sales is very over rated. Why have the DS and Wii done better than the graphically FAR FAR superior PSP and PS3? It's because most people don't actually care about graphics, they just want fun games that are easy to learn.

Tzer2 wrote:But even with gaming, things like System Rush and Bounce and COTD look absolutely fine without acceleration, they look as good as anything on the Nintendo DS for example.

I've replied to this so many times before that I can't be bothered to repeat verbatim 😊 Suffice to say that it's the reason that these games are the minority, why there aren't more ports of games between platforms and potentially why there aren't more developers for n-gage etc.

Tzer2 wrote:There's also the important point that 2D games like Reset Generation or Worms World Party wouldn't benefit from acceleration at all, because they aren't in 3D.

I'm not sure of the 2D acceleration features of the various graphics chips used by the Nokia handsets, but acceleration in general can improve any game (support for BLITing, etc.). Alpha and blending effects can make 2D games look more impressive with large numbers of particles.

Tzer2 wrote:I also think the strength of graphics to decide games sales is very over rated. Why have the DS and Wii done better than the graphically FAR FAR superior PSP and PS3? It's because most people don't actually care about graphics, they just want fun games that are easy to learn.

I both agree and disagree on this. Graphics are important, but playability and accessibility (and maybe gimickry.. just a little?) moreso. If you just saw a screenshot of a Wii game against a screenshot of a PS3 game, you might be more inclined to go with the PS3. If you saw people playing it and how much fun they were having, you would probably be more likely to go with the Wii.

Certainly, it's nice to have a gaming platform that both you and your partner can enjoy playing, which isn't generally the case for PS3, although obviously there are exceptions).

Note that the graphics of Asphalt 3 are actually pretty good, especially in screenshots - just a bit jerky. The graphics are certainly better than the repetitive gameplay (in my opinion, anyway!). It seems to be selling well, wouldn't you agree?

lots of ppl are getting an issue trying to Run Pro Series Golf in new app , it exits after 2nd shot ,or it just wont open
but dont worry there is a new PSG file tomorrow what will fix the issues

http://forums.arena.n-gage.com/nokia/board/message?board.id=3&message.id=48379&jump=true

quote from REDRUM
"PRO SERIES GOLF ISSUE: Finally, we have determined that the new 1.10 application is having issues with the current version of Pro Series Golf. We hope to have the new version available in the showroom shortly. If it's not available by Monday, I will post a direct link to the new PSG file on the forums on Monday for you to download, so you can return to playing Golf."

"If you find other issues with the new application, please post a message in the support forums so Congested can track the errors and escalate them to be fixed."

Suffice to say that it's the reason that these games are the minority, why there aren't more ports of games between platforms and potentially why there aren't more developers for n-gage etc.

With all due respect, that's just not true.

Third party publishers don't ultimately care about the tech specs or ease of development on a platform.

The only question that really REALLY matters to publishers is "How many people buy games on this platform?". Publishers flock to platforms because of their active userbase. It's the active userbase that determines sales, and sales are the only thing that interest publishers because that's where the money is. They're businesses, they want as much profit as possible to pay their workers and appease their shareholders/owners.

If you gave a publisher the choice between a million selling 2D game with bad graphics or a 10,000 selling 3D game with superb graphics, the million seller will win every time.

Java is still the top phone gaming platform purely because it's got a larger userbase than all other gaming platforms put together. Its graphics are rubbish and the platform is highly splintered, but the sales of a Java game can be very high indeed because virtually all phones sold today support Java.

If by some miracle people started buying C64 and ZX Spectrum games again in large quantities you can bet that publishers would start supporting these machines again, they wouldn't care what the hardware was like as long as their games flew off shop shelves.

N-Gage has a very small userbase right now (maybe less than 100,000) as it only just started to be embedded a couple of weeks ago, and that was in a very expensive low-selling model. Even if N-Gage was filled to the brim with gaming-friendly hardware and dev tools it wouldn't be attracting many publishers right now because such tiny user numbers aren't enough to generate significant sales.

BUT... this time next year it should be embedded on many millions of phones (including cheaper mass market models) and will seem a lot more attractive than it does now, because so many people will be literally just a few clicks away from buying the games straight onto the phone.

I'm not sure of the 2D acceleration features of the various graphics chips used by the Nokia handsets, but acceleration in general can improve any game (support for BLITing, etc.). Alpha and blending effects can make 2D games look more impressive with large numbers of particles.

Fair enough, but does anyone really play RG or Worms for things like blending effects?

I honestly think you're missing the point by going off on this graphics tangent. Phone gaming (and arguably gaming in general) is at its most successful when graphics are a sideshow, when the graphics are irrelevant.

Look at Brain Training, how the heck did that series get to be such a megahit when it has virtually no graphics at all?

And why was EA's java rerelease of tetris the best-selling phone game of the year?

Note that the graphics of Asphalt 3 are actually pretty good, especially in screenshots - just a bit jerky. The graphics are certainly better than the repetitive gameplay (in my opinion, anyway!). It seems to be selling well, wouldn't you agree?

You say that N-Gage should have hardware accelerators to make game graphics smoother, in order to increase game sales.

Yet the example you gave is of a jerky game (Asphalt 3) outselling other games with much smoother graphics (SRE, COTD, Bounce etc). Surely that means that people don't particularly care about smooth 3D graphics when choosing which game to buy? And if people don't care about smooth graphics, doesn't that make accelerator hardware redundant?

And the second best selling N-Gage game after Asphalt 3 is Tetris, which has graphics that are no better than a 1980s Amiga. No one could possibly be buying Tetris for the graphics.

lots of ppl are getting an issue trying to Run Pro Series Golf in new app , it exits after 2nd shot ,or it just wont open
but dont worry there is a new PSG file tomorrow what will fix the issues

Hmm... the 5320 has had version 1.10 for a while now and it has never had PSG even listed in its showroom, so it seems like Nokia already knew there was a compatibility problem with this particular game.

Tzer2 wrote:With all due respect, that's just not true.

Third party publishers don't ultimately care about the tech specs or ease of development on a platform.

The only question that really REALLY matters to publishers is "How many people buy games on this platform?". Publishers flock to platforms because of their active userbase. It's the active userbase that determines sales, and sales are the only thing that interest publishers because that's where the money is. They're businesses, they want as much profit as possible to pay their workers and appease their shareholders/owners.

I'm not a game publisher/developer, but I am an application developer. In my business, it's more the "money in to money out" ratio. If you already have a product and it's very little effort to port to a different platform, even if it's not a very popular platform, it might happen. Obviously, as you say, if a platform is very popular then you can expend more effort on it.

For a platform like n-gage in its infancy, making it easy for developers to port existing products is key. I assume Gameloft has made a portability layer, explaining the low-ish performance of their 3D engine. A portability engine over an accelerated 3D engine would likely be faster, of course 😉

Tzer2 wrote:Java is still the top phone gaming platform purely because it's got a larger userbase than all other gaming platforms put together. Its graphics are rubbish and the platform is highly splintered, but the sales of a Java game can be very high indeed because virtually all phones sold today support Java.

Why yes, yes it does have a large user base. Developers still release multiple versions of their games for each Java platform though, with small tweaks. Something like a developer might do when porting games which all use OpenGL ES (okay, it's more than just tweaks, but it's still a big chunk of important code that doesn't need changing). The rendering engine and gameplay will all be portable, rather than needing custom low-level renderers optimised to each device.

Tzer2 wrote:
N-Gage has a very small userbase right now (maybe less than 100,000) as it only just started to be embedded a couple of weeks ago, and that was in a very expensive low-selling model. Even if N-Gage was filled to the brim with gaming-friendly hardware and dev tools it wouldn't be attracting many publishers right now because such tiny user numbers aren't enough to generate significant sales.

BUT... this time next year it should be embedded on many millions of phones (including cheaper mass market models) and will seem a lot more attractive than it does now, because so many people will be literally just a few clicks away from buying the games straight onto the phone.

Agreed on the small userbase and I hope that n-gage does get a huge user base and more developers. I'm just thinking of ways to make the platform more appealing in the mean time, as well as reducing limitations to developers 😊

Tzer2 wrote:
Fair enough, but does anyone really play RG or Worms for things like blending effects?

No - in fact RG in particular is designed to have some retro stylings (not saying that the graphics aren't good!). Things like the background effects in Worms, large fun explosions, streams of particles etc. can all add to the gaming experience. Are they key? No. Are they a nice added extra? Yes.

Tzer2 wrote:
Look at Brain Training, how the heck did that series get to be such a megahit when it has virtually no graphics at all?

Because of the media attention it got and the thought that it will really improve memory/intelligence and that people of all ages can play it. My parents have heard of it despite never having played any games. It's not the gameplay.

Tzer2 wrote:
And why was EA's java rerelease of tetris the best-selling phone game of the year?

Because it's one of the best known games of all time?

Tzer2 wrote:
You say that N-Gage should have hardware accelerators to make game graphics smoother, in order to increase game sales.

I've mentioned that but my core argument has been portability between platforms. Improved graphics are a fringe benefit.

Tzer2 wrote:
Yet the example you gave is of a jerky game (Asphalt 3) outselling other games with much smoother graphics (SRE, COTD, Bounce etc). Surely that means that people don't particularly care about smooth 3D graphics when choosing which game to buy? And if people don't care about smooth graphics, doesn't that make accelerator hardware redundant?

Asphalt has the license, as with Tetris. And the still screenshots of Ashphalt are actually pretty good, imo. It would be better if it's smoother - don't you think? (personally, I would prefer a general gameplay overhaul - the winning conditions for many game modes are seriously flawed, imo).

I definately agree with you Argh.
One thing I cannot understand is why Tzer2 is so against Graphics Acceleration support, is'nt it a good thing if we can have better looking game? Honestly answer me?

Secondly Asphalt 3 is a hit I agree !!! but don't you agree that if we had better graphics and gameplay, how much more we would all enjoy!!!

Can't nokia do so much for its faithfull Customers, i dont think its a great deal for Nokia to have a Graphics avcceleration card support, in "mid and high" end devices like the N85 and N79, i dont think many people who go for these devices consider too much about the price factor?
what they want is future proof devices !!!
what is so great about the Iphone but still everyone is simply crazy about it !! what I want to say is nokia cannot give the excuse that graphic acceleration support increases the price, people are ready to pay believe me!! all what they need is little good promotion?

and you tell me suppose tommorow many good games come out wihich require card support, which is going to happen what are those people going to do with these nokia phones without support?
What I can't understand is why is Nokia not trying to be futer proof???

I know asphalt3 is allready doing well but how much more happier people who love ngage would be with better graphics??

I think Nokia have realised their mistake but we'll have to wait a few more months for the OMAP3 devices to arrive, but again these will be very high end at the start. Then again ngage will differentiate with HD gaming etc v's the normal software stuff. In this way you could argue they are going to be skipping a generation. Then again they need to given that Apple will also be incorporating PowerVR SGX next year.

Tzer2 your comments....