In Defense Of The N-Gage

Thanks to IGN Wireless, who, not content with vehemently defending cellphone gaming in general, have decided to step up and tell us why Nokia's N-Gage is worth a second look. As they eruditely put it, "E3 was not exactly kind to Nokia and it's [sic] new N-Gage mobile gaming platform," and they go on to compare Nokia's phone and 'mobile game deck' to another neglected system: "A lot of it depends on whether or not gamers are willing to take chance on an unproven system, or whether they'll let hype from Sony's PSP or an improved GBA prevent them from taking the plunge. Which would be a shame, because that's what happened to the Dreamcast in the face of the PS2, and now everybody sits around and talks about what a great system it really was."

Re:Bad analogy

[Trystero]

Make that "A) It costs *over* 3x more than a GBA."

As I understand it, this N-Gage runs $300. A GBA still runs, what, $70? The GBA-SP, of course, runs $100. I'm not being critical of the posting, just emphasizing how staggeringly overpriced the N-Gage is compared to what people can already buy. Three-hundred dollars for a hand-held video game player seems outrageous. Yes, I know it does more than an GBA, but if all you primarily want it for is to play games, then just get a GBA. If Nokia expects the system to survive only on the interest of geeks who love gadgets, then they are in for a rude awakening. Kids will want it for the games, and Mom & Dad won't pop for a $300 item when they can get an already popular hand-held for less than a third that price. The N-Gage is going to go down in flames.

I hadn't thought of your point B. Another nail in its coffin.

Re:Bad analogy

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. IGN basically says "well, we should support the N-Gage because what if it turns out to be an unappreciated-but-wonderful system such as the Dreamcast?" It's a very, very poor argument. The Virtual Boy did not sell well when it was first released. Should we have supported it anyway? No. It was a crap system that gave people headaches and cramped necks.

Anyhow, IGN tends to be pretty biased in its articles. It's the Fox News of the video game media. Craig of Pocket.IGN.com has repeatedly slammed the GP32 [google.com], a (IMO) wonderful handheld from Korea that has been the darling of many Slashdot readers and editors [slashdot.org].

But I digress. If we see advertising for the N-Gage pop up on IGN soon, then we'll all know the real reason that that article was written.

Re:Price tag...

[evilWurst]

Indeed! Cheaper to buy both new than the nokia combo system, and many of the people who would want the nokia already have one/both GBA and cell. Even if the nokia was pure gaming gold, its adoption would be slow for those reasons.

Further, if they're targeting the young new cell owners, success could kill them. Schools already have a dim view of cellphones as it is. If cell gaming in the classroom gets notices, they might outright ban the things from schools. Bad business and bad PR.

They should probably be targeting adult casual-gamers with this, not young "real" gamers. The older types are already willing to dump $300 on a phone with all the extras. And they'll do that for their own personal phone whereas for the kid's phone parents want something cheap and durable.

Decidedly rosy glasses?

[Snowspinner]

Personally, I cannot take seriously anyone who suggests that one can only be enthused about platformers and remakes of 16-bit games if one looks at the era through "rosy glasses".

Personally, I think my hobby died with the rise of the PSOne, and I'm left with the Gamecube as the third place console, but the only one that puts out more than a handful of games that are of types I actually enjoy. I could care less about Tony Hawk and Tomb Raider.

And lest someone mod me flamebait, I'm sure both of those are great games. I know people who enjoy them, at least. But I've just never gotten into them. They don't feel like the games I grew up on. They feel like a different hobby to me. Some people made the transition from that hobby to current video games. Some people started with Tomb Raider, and can't figure out what it is I like so much about Zelda.

But for me, if that's the future of video games, I'll be over here with my emulator, thank you.

Re:Bad analogy - Bad post

[Mike Hawk]

Why is it the most ignorant posts get modded funny?

Having GONE to E3 I saw Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 running on the N-gage. Not some watered down thing. THE ORIGINAL in its 3D glory. This device is not underpowered for the market. Thats like saying the PlayStation was underpowered to compete with the SNES, because that is what we are comparing here for handhelds.

Your note about the Dreamcast does win the obvious award, but its irrelevent to the situation.

I'm not going to buy an N-Gage because I don't play handheld games, but your post is just not factually correct.

People on Slashdot should support this

[Anonymous Coward]

For the simple reason that it'll be the only open handheld games console. You'll be able to develop games and software for it... for free! In Java and C++, no dodgy assembly language required!

When you couple this with Bluetooth connectivity and access to GPRS, dialling voice calls, sending SMS, I fail to see why people aren't excited. The platform is a bedroom developer's dream, and hence there should be a large number of innovative games developed for it - and its potential successors.

Not forgetting that there are thousands of J2ME games it can play out there already...