Nokia N-Gage is revived as a gaming platform
(Credit: Nokia)As part of its new Ovi brand of Internet services, Nokia is reviving the much-maligned N-Gage gaming platform in a new way. Instead of offering a hardware-based gaming system, Nokia is opening up a mobile gaming portal with the N-Gage branding. Once accessed, you can browse through a wide selection of game titles, download free trials, and finally purchase the games directly from Nokia. Nokia is also heavily promoting the community aspect of the new N-Gage platform, suggesting that you can connect and play with friends all over the world, as well as keep track of global gaming stats. As with the Music store, you can either purchase the game over the air or download it to your PC first. And these aren't just any ordinary games, either. Gaming titles include popular ones such as EA Sports' FIFA 08, The Sims 2 Pets, Tetris, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, and Crash Bandicoot. A host of different gaming companies have jumped on board, such as Capcom, Digital Chocolate, EA, Gameloft, Glu Mobile, Vivendi Games Mobile, and more, signifying the availability of additional games in the future.
Initial pricing per game will range between $8.16 and $13.60 (6 and 10 euros), or alternatively, daily and weekly licenses are available at lower prices. Supported phones include the Nokia N73, the Nokia N81, the Nokia N81 8GB, the Nokia N93, the Nokia N93i, the Nokia N95, and the Nokia N95 8GB, with more planned in the future. The service will debut in November 2007.
This is not the N-Gage 2
(Credit: Nokia)Nokia has confirmed that a successor to the N-Gage is due by early 2008. The company's FutureWatch blog indicates that developers EA and Gameloft are on board to develop for the updated N-Gage, and that other "leading publishers" will be making games as well.
Perhaps the bigger news is that the next N-Gage won't be a single device, but rather a gaming platform available on certain of its advanced Series 60 models. (Whether a future Series 60 phone will look like the Nokia concept pictured here, however, is anybody's guess.) Instead of buying games on MMC cards, titles would simply be purchased and downloaded directly to the phones via cellular broadband services. This conforms with the broad outline of the N-Gage's future that Nokia unveiled back at E3 2005.
If it all pans out, the new direction for the N-Gage makes a lot more sense. The idea of getting a superior phone that offers decent gameplay as a value-added extra feature is much more appealing than getting a device that's fatally compromised between its gaming and telephone functionality--which was essentially the case with the much maligned N-Gage (and its follow-up, the N-Gage QD). No, the new N-Gage phones won't ever compete with the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP, but if the downloadable titles are competitively priced ($2 to $5) and offer some compelling on-the-go gameplay surpassing the Java minigames found on standard handsets, there's no reason N-Gage games wouldn't be as popular as, say, downloadable ringtones.
In a recent interview with the U.K.'s Mobile Entertainment, Nokia exec Jaakko Kaidesoja confirmed that the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco in early March--not February's 3GSM conference in Barcelona--is the show to watch for N-Gage news. In the meantime, we'll leave you with the original phone's greatest legacy: Sidetalkin'.
Editors' note: This blog entry has been updated since its original publication to reflect additional information.
Sources: Nokia FutureWatch blog via Joystiq, and Mobile Entertainment via Gizmodo
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