New phones, new markets?

[Aphra K]

Hi all,

Was reading the piece on mobile phones in the Sunday Tribune on the 30/3/03 and having been at the Nokia developer day the week before it is clear a number of new handsets will hit the market towards the end of this year which will be capable of displaying high quality colour games.

So far it has been a difficult area to make money but with both operators and phone manufacturers eager to develop data rich content applications the future is looking up.

We have Eirplay and Kapooki already in this space and a number of companies I had never heard of attended the Nokia day.

Have you any lessons to offer companies who are thinking of developing content for mobiles both in Ireland and abroad?

Aphra.

[Aphra K]

and I see the pricing has just been announced for the N-gage….The N-Gage itself will retail for $299 while the games, which are available on
memory cards, will cost $30 to $40.

or so it says on gamasutra.com anyway

anyone busy on concepts for the N-gage challenge?

Aphra.

[Anonymous]

Theres an interesting interview posted @ The Register today by gi.biz with Ilkka Raiskinen ( senior VP of the entertainment and media business unit at Nokia ) for anyone thats interested.

xunil

[Anonymous]

Worth keeping an eye on gamesindustry.biz everyday, thats rob (shinji from these boards) conducting the interview. Makes me feel proud.

It looks like, to a certain extent, that this n-gage is about hardware sales. In the same way that lots of people with significantly generous incomes can afford to throw money away at gimmicky phones, nokia might be intending to lure some customers to their flasy n-gage. Since its not going to be a loss making exercise they can afford to experiment and test the market, as well as generate interest for it. Then like all good nokia products I’d expect version 2 to be out a year later at the same high prices. Repeat until success, or stop if going no-where.

Compared to the new sony handheld or the gba-sp, the model is very different. These are consoles which will be around for ages and attempt to make most of the money from software sales, while subsidising the cost of the machine.

As well as hardware the n-gage looks to be about mobile gaming subscription fees and charges and so-on. You can imagine how this will attract casual gamers who would never put the time and effort into setting up an online game on their pc; but when their friends show up walking down the street with this flashy gizmo that can play worms multiplayer with a mate 20 miles away, they just have to have one. This is something nintendo and sony are both going to miss out badly on if the n-gage can take off.

For a developer, if you see the n-gage succeeding, then this could be a very lucrative time. On the other hand given the initial lack of interest to customers it might be something you want to stay away from for now.

[Jamie Mc]

Sounds good >:)

I did get a text today from O2 about this N-Gage challenge they are running, so they’re letting everyone on their network have a go.

Jamie

[Aphra K]

I was talking to the people in UpStart Games and it seems there has been great interest in their N-Gage challenge. Over 350 application packs sent out…should be interesting to see which five are selected for development..

aphra.

[Anonymous]

From a gamer point of view, i’m not to keen on the N Gage, somehow i really wonder about the amount of thought they put into it

You can’t even switch games without removing the batteries, and the screen orientation isn’t all that conomical either

I’m curious to see what comes out of it though, and gprs network games could be very funny to play.

I’m a succer for expensive phones/gadgets, and i have a p800 right now, but i think i’m gonna wait and see a bit what kind of games come out for it

Also, network games aren’t that funny if you have no-one to play with, and since they are not that cheap, i doubt my mates will buy one either

Lets see what the future brings for nokia ;-)

Willem

[Anonymous]

I think the N-Gage will be a relatively successful product.

All current phones aren’t really designed for games, though you can play some pretty good games on them. We’re talking about casual gaming here (no RTS, FPS). The N-Gage is the first dedicated game phones, so it should find it’s own niche. It’s real success will depend of games that exploit it’s wireless capabilities (bluetooth etc…) There is good scope for innovate games here, that may even appeal to core gamers….plus all gadget freaks – yes, i am one too. Btw – ex Doom guy John Romero is producing a FPS for the N-Gage called Red Faction….. maybe you can frag on a phone!

On a seperate note, saw the Matrix RL last nite – almost too many SFX, and Morpheous has a bigger belly……

BM

[Anonymous]

Just read a nice review

http://www.gamesfirst.com/previews/shawn/ngage/ngage.htm

It looks halfway promising, lets just see what happens :-)

Willem

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