Does it matter if the Next Gen N-Gage launch is delayed?
Obviously this is deeply embarassing for Nokia. A long time ago they spoke of the Next Gen launching in early 2006, which slipped to late 2006, then the first half of 2007, then November 2007, then December 2007, and now it looks like the current official estimate is 2008. They've given out too many dates which they've failed to keep to, and fans of N-Gage have been literally waiting years for this to launch.
It's also making Nokia's general push into providing online services look tarnished. Their CEO said at the massively hyped Go Play event in London that they would launch N-Gage in November 2007, so why haven't they? Will any new services Nokia announces be similarly delayed?
Some have talked about this as a disaster, as bad as the original first gen N-Gage launch.
However, this last point is going too far, because it fails to make a distinction between a dedicated games console and a games service. Launch delays just aren't that significant if the games are intended for non-gaming hardware that people are already buying for non-gaming reasons.
Console vs Service: Why the delay doesn't matter THAT much
The original N-gage, if people cast their minds back to 2003, launched exactly on time, and it was an utter disaster as virtually no one bought it on the launch day. Nokia's other S60 smartphones, which were essentially identical hardware to the original N-Gage, sold very well, yet the N-Gage itself which was substantially cheaper attracted comparatively few followers.
Though the original N-Gage was just another Nokia smartphone, it was marketed as a games console and its gamecards contained DRM software which prevented them working on other Nokia smartphones (even though technically the other phones could run the games, and were able to run non-DRM pirate copies).
The effect of this DRM lock-in was to tie Nokia into the games console business model, and also tie them into the vicious circle which afflicts games consoles: to sell lots of hardware you need to offer lots of great games, but to offer lots of great games you need to sell lots of hardware. Because the original N-Gage flopped very badly at its launch, many third party game developers pulled out of supporting the system, which made the system even less attractive to gamers, which kept sales down, which made even more developers pull out etc. This was the same sort of effect that hampered Nintendo with their GameCube console, Sega with their Saturn console and Atari with pretty much everything they released after the 2600.
This is why launches are so important on games consoles, as they let the game developers judge whether it's worth their while pouring money into supporting a system, which in turn lets gamers judge whether it's worth buying the console.
But the Next Gen N-Gage platform has skipped this stage completely. They have ALREADY sold the hardware to run the games, tens of millions of people already own compatible phones, and that number is growing at an ever-faster rate. Unlike the original gen N-Gage, the audience for Next Gen N-Gage games is already huge, especially for titles that have mass appeal to casual gamers. Nokia already have the userbase they need to attract game developers, and the Next Gen N-Gage userbase will become more attractive to game developers all the time whether N-Gage launches or not. The emphasis is there because it's this last point which is absolutely crucial but which people fail to understand.
Nokia's smartphones are already selling extremely well, purely on their non-gaming merits. Tens of millions of people buy them every year as phones, cameras, GPS units, PDAs etc. The gaming side is just one more icon among many on the phone's desktop, and its presence or absence is unlikely to make much difference to overall sales. If smartphone sales keep growing every year the way they have in the past, a side effect of this is that Nokia's smartphones will become an ever-more-viable gaming platform.
This exact same case could also be made for other companies' phones too, as phone sales in general dwarf those of games consoles (over 1 billion phones are sold every year, compared to about 30 million consoles). It wouldn't be at all surprising if Sony Ericsson brought out some sort of PlayStation-branded phone game platform, particularly if Next Gen N-Gage is successful. (Interestingly enough this would probably use the same Symbian operating system that Next Gen N-Gage uses, because Sony Ericsson uses Symbian for all its smartphones and is a major shareholder of the Symbian company along with Nokia).
The Advantage of Past Failures
As stated above, N-Gage fans have been waiting years for this launch and further delays are going to frustrate them and possibly even make them give up on the platform. But how many N-Gage fans are there at the moment? How many people even know Next Gen N-Gage exists before it launches?
The low sales of the original gen N-Gage meant that most gamers ignored the system completely, and all of Nokia's announcements about the Next Gen N-Gage platform have also been virtually ignored by the gaming press. Most gamers aren't aware of any delay to the N-Gage launch, because most gamers aren't aware that there even is a next gen platform.
When Nokia announced the new Star Wars game for Next Gen N-Gage, some gaming sites reported this as being for the original gen N-Gage. Next Gen was completely off their radar.
Delays to the Next Gen N-Gage platform don't actually make that much difference to the gaming world's opinion of N-Gage, because the gaming world mostly doesn't even know N-Gage is returning.
How to avoid a PR disaster: Please Nokia, call a spade a spade and a beta test a beta test
Delaying the launch may not be that significant, because people are buying the compatible phones anyway, so the N-Gage userbase is increasing rapidly even without any games being available.
However, when the launch does happen, people WILL begin to notice the service, and if it's a very poor service (for example if it only supports one phone and only offers one game) they will dismiss it and possibly never come back for more.
The Next Gen N-Gage platform is a far more connected gaming service than the original N-Gage, and many people have compared it to Xbox Live. This means Nokia probably need to test the new platform with very large numbers of users before they can be sure about ironing out serious bugs, and their recent post about the delay mention that they already have over 1000 people doing testing. What needs to happen next is to test it with tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of users, but that can only happen when the platform is open to the public.
If there are bugs though, the public will be disappointed. The way round this problem is to call it what it is: a public beta test. If people know it's a beta version and not the final version, they will make allowances for any quirks they find, and won't assume anything is a finished product. In return for this generosity of spirit, Nokia ought to also be generous and allow people to have at least some games used in beta testing for free. Obviously Nokia can't do this with third party software, but they do have quite a few first party titles lined up for the launch which could be given away to people who take part in the beta test.
Nokia Maps launched as a public beta test, and is now a successful and very widely used service, so it seems odd that Nokia is being so coy about describing N-Gage as being in a public beta test. If Nokia are honest with us about what "First Access" means, we won't be so harsh about any possible shortcomings or bugs when we finally get to access the platform.