If you're an ICQ user, you'll occassionally notice an ad for "Sumo Vollyball" which will let you square off head to head (or fatbody to fatbody) in a ruthless match of gravity defying matrix like volleyball. There is no better way to start a Monday morning than by starting it off playing this fine multi-player game. This morning, I dominated my colleague David, but he's still leading the series by a comfy margin. I'll keep you posted ....
Which brings me to multi-player gaming (for mobile phones)... last week saw all news releated sites mentino that Nokia's N-Gage had dropped off UK Retail Charts organisation ELSPA list of what's selling hot .... it's selling so bad, I guess, that it's almost a no-show. Well, this isn't surprising ... considering the first N-Gage REALLY took a beating (some of its criticism was justifed, while other parts were not). Look, the first N-Gage was a STEAL as a phone -- Symbian Series 60, with Bluetooth (which supported the headset profile among others) MMC card slot, MP3 player, Tri-Band (works pretty much everywhere in the GSM world) ... from a phone perspective, it was great. Of course, everybody knows that sidetalking killed the first version, along with a lot of undeserved bad press, but the second N-Gage QD fixed most of those problems (but it removed the MP3 Player software and more importantly for me, the Tri-Band support) ... but kept much of the rest of the baby as it threw out dirty bathwater. However, pundits still attacked it ...
Sure, some other mobile game consoles are better at gaming, but what gaming pundits failed to realize, was that the N-Gage WAS (and still is) a revolution -- its multi-player capabilites via Bluetooth or online (next version REALLY needs to support EDGE and maybe "3G", if they come out with a 3rd one -- which I hope they do) GPRS connection was awsome. Forming ad-hoc Bluetooth gaming circles rocks the house, plus playing online is cool -- Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft are just starting to get the hint on their normal gaming consoles -- Nokia really struck the first blow.
Whatever the case -- this subject has been beaten to death already. See you on Sumo Volleyball (I'm user "dawggy")...
3 comments:
While the press has had a field day with Nokia and it's N-Gage over the last little bit, I get the feeling that Nokia may still pull a rabbit out of it's hat yet.
The original N-Gage (and to a lesser extent the QD for obvious reasons) did alot to change my perception of what a mobile device could be. This also happened again with the latest HP6300 series of quad-band, PDA's that happen to also completely rock as a mobile media device.
Personally, I think the focus on gaming was more of the issue than the device itself. Marketing to hard-core gamers who already have a GameBoy or are eagerly anticipating the PSP is an uphill battle. And once you've positioned yourself in that playing field, trying to rebrand the device to other more casual markets is a non-starter.
Hopefully, the next N-Gage will look to take on devices such as Creative's portable media centre, HP6300 series, Hiptop Danger and Tapwave Zodiac. I think combining a communictions device with media (and casual gaming) device would be a much smarter way to go.
Bryan, you hit it on the money -- the problem was, that Nokia's marketing departement screwed up -- pushing it as a gaming console first, then a phone second -- it just couldn't stack up to the others (in terms of usability, number of games, price, graphics, etc...) ... as a phone for PLAYING games (which is how they should have branded it, but it's all a moot point now), it's pretty smoov.
Yes, the rumor mill is churning that Nokia is pulling the N-Gage -- sad news in my opinion ... I do hope they try to "re-brand" in the near future phones that are good for playing games, that can "use" the same games as the "old" N-Gage, etc... that would be great.
Nokia seems to be always first to the punch with many things, but they do many wierd things, too, in tandem -- funny how that works.
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