Nokia said to Reuters last week that they were disappointed by the N-Gage, as it had had missed it's sales target of 6 million in three years, by more than 66 percent.
We've always been bullish on the N-Gage, because of it's architectural similarity to the S60 (the platform formerly known as Symbian Series 60), and this fact continues to be true.
This is why (in part) that we're bringing the Reuters report to your attention - Anssi Vanjoki, head of Nokia's Multimedia division, which produces N-Gage, also explicitly promised that ...
Nokia said to Reuters last week that they were disappointed by the N-Gage, as it had had missed it's sales target of 6 million in three years, by more than 66 percent.
We've always been bullish on the N-Gage, because of it's architectural similarity to the S60 (the platform formerly known as Symbian Series 60), and this fact continues to be true.
This is why (in part) that we're bringing the Reuters report to your attention - Anssi Vanjoki, head of Nokia's Multimedia division, which produces N-Gage, also explicitly promised that Nokia will now bring the games that were developed for N-Gage to the new N-series phones it launched earlier this year.
How they plan to do this will be interesting. The traditional method for distributing N-Gage software has been through MMC cards - both the N-Gage and the N-Gage QD accept this, and in addition Nokia has released enhancements which allow the use of multiple MMC cards with a single N-Gage.
Unfortunately, all the N-series handsets are very different in terms of removable media they accept. The N90 and N70 accept DV RS-MMC (also known as MMCmobile), the N80 and N71 accept miniSD, the N92 accepts full-size SD, while the N91 does not accept removable media at all. This would render the traditional distribution model virtually impossible; the stock problems alone would be horrendous.
A clumsy compromise might be to use miniSD cards for the games, and ship with converters to MMC/full-size SD to retain N-Gage and N92 support. However, this does not adhere to the spirit of the promise. (and Nokia tends to keep promises, except about release dates.) It must be remembered that this is also unlikely to be a planning defect, because statements about how N-Gage was about to become a platform have been consistently made since May.
We suggest that the answer is simple - N-Gage will become N-Gage Arena, and games will be download-only. Nokia already has the infrastructure in place, and has recently announced other initiatives to improve the state of mobile gaming online. It is also effective as a data-play to increase operator revenue - as an online gaming community network usage is virtually guaranteed, and it helps that all of the N-series is also 3G capable. (except the Nokia N70-5 - but that phone is not scheduled for worldwide release.)
This would also handily solve one other problem - that (almost) every game is available online for to download and play. For free. On-line authentication is hard(er) to fake.
All the above is purely speculation, and we were wrong the last time we speculated about the N-Gage - but how else will Nokia be able to fulfil their promise?
