Official Nokia N-Gage Thread

I don't know why everybody's so down on the N-Gage. I think the problem is that you all are thinking of it as in direct competition with the GBA etc., when in fact it's actually part of a broader strategy.

Sure it's got a lot of flaws, and the E3 presentation was embarrassing, but this thing has some potential. I'd love to play Puzzle Bobble and similar games against other people, wherever I go. And it looks like the thing has a ton of useful features given its cost.

I just might pick it up in October. My N-Gage shoulder bag even has a specially designed pocket for it.

I am not down on it. I just lost interest in buying one because of the price tag, especially since I have no need for a phone and it would be a console only for me.

I actually hope it succeeds and does well though. Any competition in the handheld market is a good thing in my book.

I also do not understand why so many people want to see it do poorly. I don't know why anyone would be upset about them selling this at a videogame store. If you don't have interest in the system, then don't browse that section.

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Originally Posted by sggg

I don't know why anyone would be upset about them selling this at a videogame store. If you don't have interest in the system, then don't browse that section.

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well coming from some one who works in a videogame store with allready overcrowded shelfs realize that the support of the Ngage means getting ride of something else like Genesis, Dreamcast (the top 2 options for them dropping right now, least in our store), SNES, NES etc etc

store spacing is limited and personally id rather we keep carrying Genesis games than get ride of them to make room for a half assed console/cell phone with a tiny screen, a pain in the ass way of changing games, and a large price tag


People complain about Gamestop not carrying Saturn, Master System, Game Gear, NGPC, and Turbografix stuff bringing this in just means the dropping of something else and i can tell you Genesis and Dreamcast are damn close to be dropped next

whats next are we gonna start offering phone plans too? lets get ride of another section to add phone plans from sprint and AT&T

Relax dude, breathe.

see, what your store needs to do is get rid of all that excess junk.

in other news, WE don't carry all of that with exception to DreamCast and N64. Time to consolidate methinks.

May wanna check your emails, because GS is not offering phone plans, a pre-valued service will be available with the N-Gage. Should the customer want to continue to use the N-Gage for cellular service, they'll have to contact a provider.

btw, there's no e in rid.

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Originally Posted by sggg

I am not down on it. I just lost interest in buying one because of the price tag, especially since I have no need for a phone and it would be a console only for me.

I actually hope it succeeds and does well though. Any competition in the handheld market is a good thing in my book.

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That's pretty much how I feel. If the N-Gage were under $200 (preferably under $150), then I'd be a lot more enthusiastic about it. A penny shy of $300 is a lot of money for something that I'd be using almost exclusively for gaming, since I already have a cell phone, and have no intention of switching my service from Sprint to whatever it is that N-Gage is using (I only know it's not Sprint).

If Nokia offered a "phoneless" version of the N-Gage for $150-$200 that removed the phone, but kept the gaming, MP3, and Bluetooth capabilities intact, then that would have been sweet. Bluetooth would still enable you to connect wirelessly to a friend's N-Gage for head-to-head games, and possibly also to the Internet through another (Bluetooth-enabled) cell phone that you're carrying.

Nokia also needs to alter that incredibly clumsy way of changing game cards, if they want to be taken seriously as a portable video game system. My friend tried the N-Gage at E3, and was really shocked that Nokia hadn't even thought about improving that, even though journalists criticized that very same issue at the N-Gage unveiling a few months earlier. The unveiling should have been used as a golden opportunity for Nokia to collect feedback to improve the product, rather than say "here's the final product" and have its design rigidly set in stone 8 months before its release. That's another really big turn-off--both the clumsiness of design, and the fact that Nokia turns a deaf ear to the many complaints about it.

All I know is, the Game Boy has been plagued with every fault you can name since it came out in 1989 (including shitty games -- compared to the Fatboy's initial lineup the N-Gage's October launch will be SNES '91 all over again), and yet it's still here today.

Nokia is a good company with a lot of money, and I'm confident they'll do what it takes to make this thing a success in some form.

I think Sleeveboy secretly works for Nokia :sneak:

...or maybe it's me?!?!

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Originally Posted by bahn

Relax dude, breathe.

see, what your store needs to do is get rid of all that excess junk.

in other news, WE don't carry all of that with exception to DreamCast and N64. Time to consolidate methinks.

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except all that still sells for us

every other sale is either a Genesis, NES or SNES game

this N-gage wont sell for us

and comparing its line up to the SNES'

my god thats smoking crack at its best sorry Sleeve but it is



people bitch about paying 179.99 for a CONSOLE if you think enough people are going to spend 299.99 on this waste to make it a viable product to waste shelf space on in a store i have a bridge to sell you

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Originally Posted by bahn

May wanna check your emails, because GS is not offering phone plans, a pre-valued service will be available with the N-Gage. Should the customer want to continue to use the N-Gage for cellular service, they'll have to contact a provider.

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the greater point of the post and that comment went flying right over your head

I was being sarcastic man. jeez - lighten up will ya

you still spelled rid wrong ;p

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Originally Posted by Agent X

That's pretty much how I feel. If the N-Gage were under $200 (preferably under $150), then I'd be a lot more enthusiastic about it. A penny shy of $300 is a lot of money for something that I'd be using almost exclusively for gaming, since I already have a cell phone, and have no intention of switching my service from Sprint to whatever it is that N-Gage is using (I only know it's not Sprint).

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If it's using T-Mobile, then the N-Gage will work with pretty much any cellular provider that uses SIM cards. You really don't even need to buy a plan; just pop a pre-activated SIM card in and you're set to go. (That's what I did when I switched from my Nokia 3390 to a Handspring VisorPhone.)

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Originally Posted by Agent X

If Nokia offered a "phoneless" version of the N-Gage for $150-$200 that removed the phone, but kept the gaming, MP3, and Bluetooth capabilities intact, then that would have been sweet. Bluetooth would still enable you to connect wirelessly to a friend's N-Gage for head-to-head games, and possibly also to the Internet through another (Bluetooth-enabled) cell phone that you're carrying.

Nokia also needs to alter that incredibly clumsy way of changing game cards, if they want to be taken seriously as a portable video game system. My friend tried the N-Gage at E3, and was really shocked that Nokia hadn't even thought about improving that, even though journalists criticized that very same issue at the N-Gage unveiling a few months earlier. The unveiling should have been used as a golden opportunity for Nokia to collect feedback to improve the product, rather than say "here's the final product" and have its design rigidly set in stone 8 months before its release. That's another really big turn-off--both the clumsiness of design, and the fact that Nokia turns a deaf ear to the many complaints about it.

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Just because of the game switching problem, I would consider the gaming capability the least of my reasons to buy one. However, its cell phone capability, plus address book, MP3 player, etc etc would be a good incentive for me. My Handspring Visor Pro plus VisorPhone is very handy, but goddamn that thing's a fucking brick. :) It would be nice to have something a bit handy that could play MP3's, store my addresses... oh and could play games too. :)

I just wish that Nokia's marketing people weren't such idiots. The "GBA is for children" comments and the spamming of TNL does not leave me with a good feeling. (Though, granted, that company may not have been working with Nokia's approval.)

Just my $.02...

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Originally Posted by DArque Bishop

Just because of the game switching problem, I would consider the gaming capability the least of my reasons to buy one. However, its cell phone capability, plus address book, MP3 player, etc etc would be a good incentive for me. My Handspring Visor Pro plus VisorPhone is very handy, but goddamn that thing's a fucking brick. :) It would be nice to have something a bit handy that could play MP3's, store my addresses... oh and could play games too. :)

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The N-gage isn't the only option. At least one manufacturer (T-mobile) has a Pocket PC Phone Edition unit out, which is essentially a PPC with phone circuitry built-in. There are Visorphone-like enhancements to normal PPCs as well.

But then, you're probably synching your Visor with Linux through some complex wizardry (or convoluted open-source program), so a PPC may not work for you. :)

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Originally Posted by Lhadatt

The N-gage isn't the only option. At least one manufacturer (T-mobile) has a Pocket PC Phone Edition unit out, which is essentially a PPC with phone circuitry built-in. There are Visorphone-like enhancements to normal PPCs as well.

But then, you're probably synching your Visor with Linux through some complex wizardry (or convoluted open-source program), so a PPC may not work for you. :)

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Yeah, I know about the PocketPC Phone Edition. My experience with PocketPC's haven't always been for the best. If I was to get a new phone, I'd actually probably go for a Handspring Treo. As it stands, right now, the Visor Pro w/ PDA works fine for me. If I want games, I can always get Midway's Arcade Classics for it. :)

As far as synching it with Linux, nothing complex needed. Red Hat 9 supports synching with Visors with little issue. That's one thing that N-Gage would have to sell me on, as I'll be switching my main PC to RH 9 this weekend and I don't think N-Gage supports Linux synchronization yet. :chick:

A while back, I mentioned a system called the Tapwave Helix, which is supposed to come out later this year. It has some very nice specifications--maybe not as good as Sony's PSP, but it looks like it should be pretty far ahead of the N-Gage, at least from a gaming perspective. They've also signed Activision, Midway, Atari, and Digital Eclipse for development on this system (hopefully Digital Eclipse will be doing some tasty arcade emulation :) ). Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 and Neverwinter Nights have already been named as launch titles.

Despite the very impressive specs, I've heard very little about the Helix in the press. A few magazines and Web sites have made brief mentions of it, but that's about all.

How do you think the Helix will fare in the market? It might eventually get squashed by the arrival of the PSP (or it might not), and I doubt it would cause massive amounts of GBA owners to throw the GBA in the trash, but could this machine at least carve out a niche? I could see it possibly supplanting the Game Park GP32 as a portable homebrew/emulation video game platform.

Also, how do you think Helix will do going up against N-Gage?

I'm still quite excited about this system, I like how the new Tomb Raider font is used for the NG game. The system's price is murder though. On the upside, it will drop rapidly.

I'm guessing that you may be able to get this system at around $250 (or maybe even $200-230?) as long as you sign on with a contract... most phone companies give you $150-200 phones for free when you sign a yearly agreement, why can't they do the same with the N-Gage?

Because that would make sense, and be a smart move financially.

I don't want or need a cell phone, though I recognize that I will probably have to have one some day.

Yes, they need a cheaper, game-only version. What is really needed, I think, is a Microsoft or Sony handheld and an agreement with Nokia (or whomever) to produce a cell phone that includes the full abilities of the handheld. That would have a good chance of success.

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Originally Posted by RoleTroll

What is really needed, I think, is a Microsoft or Sony handheld and an agreement with Nokia (or whomever) to produce a cell phone that includes the full abilities of the handheld. That would have a good chance of success.

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That would be an excellent idea! Unfortunately, I don't think Nokia would partner with either Sony or Microsoft anytime in the foreseeable future.

Sony is rather buddy-buddy with Ericsson (a longtime rival of Nokia), and they have a joint venture for cell phones called (appropriately enough) Sony Ericsson. Microsoft isn't likely either, because Nokia is a heavy investor in Symbian, which competes with Microsoft's smartphone OS. For that matter, Sony Ericsson is also an investor in Symbian.

Nokia could possibly join forces with Nintendo. They could then make a cell phone that plays GB/GBC/GBA games. This would, however, render the N-Gage platform redundant. A team-up would also require Nokia to swallow a lot of pride with regard to the disparaging comments they made about Nintendo's handhelds recently.

I still think a "phoneless" version of the N-Gage would be their best bet for getting mass-market consumer support for the gaming side of the platform. At the same time, they might want to include N-Gage gaming in a wider range of phones (which I believe is in their plans anyway). They could also license the platform (read: ability to play N-Gage games) out to other manufacturers to include in their phones. That way, other manufacturers can do what they want to with the form factor, while Nokia could still collect licensing fees for the underlying technology (like CD-i, 3DO, or NUON). The current model of the N-Gage might have its flaws, but the platform could live on if Nokia plays their cards right.

I liked what I saw on the back of the promo boxes for the games at EB. The graphics look fantastic, not $300 new portable fantastic, but fantastic for a portable system. Sonic looks absolutely incredible.

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Originally Posted by Jeremy

Sonic looks absolutely incredible.

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Isn't Sonic N just a port of the first Sonic Advance.... ?