N-Gage Hits The Market

[krug3r]

When you think of a major Finnish mobile handset manufacturer, GameBoy-like, multi-purpose gadgets don't necessarily come to mind.

But Nokia has announced its foray into the mobile videogame market with the official release of its N-Gage system, which combines a handheld videogame player with a wireless phone, paging functions, a MP3 player and a variety of other features.

Nokia's strategy is to target the avid videogame user in the 16- to 30-year-old market, rather than the kid's gaming segment, a market that Nintendo has dominated with its GameBoy franchise.

As part of the product rollout, Nokia has lined up major videogame publishers for licensing deals to create games for the N-Gage platform. Those companies include Electronic Arts (Quote, Chart), Activision (Quote, Chart) and Taito.

"New titles coming in time for the holiday season will include such bestsellers as NCAA Football 2004, Red Faction, a special N-Gage version of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell," Nokia said in a statement. Electronic Arts said FIFA Soccer 2004 would be released for the Nokia N-Gage game deck, which will allow for head-to-head multiplayer gameplay using BlueTooth wireless technology.

Nokia's price tag for N-Gage is $449, and game will cost around $50 for each title. Nokia's prices are far greater than Nintendo's portable gaming units, and also much more than Sony's (Quote, Chart) PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Corp.'s (Quote, Chart) X-box.

Nokia argues the device not only has phone and PDA capabilities, but also has multimedia paging, FM-quality stereo radio and a MP3 player, and is a reasonable price tag. Nokia says N-Gage's phone technology allows portable videogame players to play each other from anywhere in the world connected via the GSM system.

"Built for active and hardcore gamers, the Nokia N-Gage is the first mobile and connected game deck to feature online high-quality 3D multiplayer gameplay over Bluetooth wireless technology and GPRS," Nokia said.

While Nokia is the first electronics manufacturer to take on Nintendo in the portable videogame market, Sony is working on a portable PlayStation device expected to hit the market in the fall of 2004.

Sony has said its device will have a 4.5-inch screen and will be able to process DVD-quality video. Also, Tapwave recently came out with its Zodiac mobile entertainment console, which is base on the Palm (Quote, Chart) operating system.

Nokia will initially focus on marketing its new videogame gadget phones in Hong Kong, Australia, Singapore and Thailand. The company said it hopes to sell between six and nine million units of the N-Gage handset by the end of 2004.

Nokia is the worldwide leader in the cell phone handset market with a 40 percent market share, selling over 150 million phones on the global market.

Analysts who cover Nokia estimate the start-up costs of launching the N-Gage platform are close to $175 million, and it could be several quarters before the company begins to realize the financial benefits on the product launch.

Nokia is working with some European mobile service providers to offer reduced rates for the new N-Gage devices. Those companies include mmO2 and Telfort of The Netherlands. Nokia made no public statement regarding any discounts given to service providers and retailers.

Nokia said N-Gage will be sold in 60 countries in more than 30,000 electronics retailers.

In a separate announcement on Tuesday, Nokia said it expects the mobile data services market to grow more than four-fold in the next four years. The company said it believes the mobile data services market is close to $47 billion, and speculates it will grow to more than $211 billion by 2007.

Nokia also said on Tuesday it struck a deal with the IMG/TWI, the sports marketing firm about starting a new trial for a mobile multimedia sports service.

"Nokia and international sports marketing company IMG/TWI teamed up to develop the Essential Sports Service to deliver sports images, news, updates and audio commentary to sports' fans mobile phones. In total five operators in Asia Pacific and Europe offered the individually branded services to their MMS subscribers," the companies said.

[Daedalus]

i've played on one, twice in fact. Once in the Vodafone shop and once and Gamestation (so they've got them in both phone shops and games shops, which makes more sense seeing as it's a hybrid of the two). The one (or two to be precise) in the Vodafone shop had Pandemonium, which is a platform/racing hybrid, where you run as fast as you can (you play a man or a women, i forget their names) to the end of the level, tackleing obsticales (sp?) as you go. Me and a friend had a two player race via Bluetooth (which works really well, with no slow down at all between the two devices) but as well as picking each other up, they also picked up a T610 that was nearby. Where it was we did'nt know, but it was funny to see someone elses phone being picked up. Could have been someone walking past outside for all we knew :)
Anyway, the game looked amazing, like early Playstation titles with a full 3D rotating camera, although most of the game play was from the side, roughly. There was no slow down of frame rate, which I was expecting it to have, and the screen was'nt too small, although if it'd been a bit bigger and widescreen like the GBA's is that it would have been nicer. The fact that it only has a 4096 colour screen was a bit of a minus, but it did'nt show in game. Even the still pictures displayed looked quite fresh and clear. The second game that I played single player at Gamestation was Tomb Raider :) It was pretty good, and basicly a clone of the original Playstation title. Same movement and similar controls, tho it was very hard to control is small spaces and would have been far easier if there were more wide open spaces. You can toggle auto-run on and off, meaning all you have to do it 'steer' Lara through the level toting her twin pistols.
Again, no slow down, much, but the graphics can look a little choppy now and then. But, all in all, can't complain really. My friend did'nt even know what it was or what the big deal was until I got him to play it, and now he wants one. Or he did, until i showed him how you talk on it, then he changed his mind lol :)
What winds me up tho is people who don't even know it's name. Someone came up to me during my IT lesson and said "have you seen that new Nokia Gameboy like thing?", which pissed me off a bit :pissed: but i'm just picky, or their ignorant, but i'd rather it was a latter :)

[krug3r]

I also went to Game today and had a go on this little machine. I must agree I was more impressed with the graphics and gameplay (Pandemoniem) than I was expecting. As a games machine I think its pretty decent....but then I saw the game prices £35 each and it put me off.... The phone capabilities were restricted in Game so I couldn't really use it for much else...overall keypad etc seemed fine but I won't be getting one.

For a die hard gamer it may well catch on but for phone addicts I don't think it will imho.

[bart]

news flash all belgium phone salers say this. n-gage not selling good, demo phones don't work, and all phones sold come back with in the week because of crashes and probs

so this means i'm happy :)

[Daedalus]

i noticed that too Kruger, we could'nt use ANY of the other features other than the 1 game per device and the bluetooth, which means you can't have a real look at how the menu and the phone in general works.