Consoles

This is pretty old news - on December 19th Nokia announced that it had unveiled for the first time to sixteen of Nokia's first party games developers, Nokia's next generation mobile games development platform.

The press release included multiple positive comments from game developers - which all seemed to center on how the "ecosystem" created by the "games platform" was an "end-to-end gaming strategy."

The question is - what's the hold up? The Nokia strategy, first set out in may 2005, was to expand the N-Gage platform's rich connected multiplayer experience across a wide range of Nokia multimedia devices; such devices would have enhanced 3D graphics, offer user-friendly search, purchase and installation of games, instant access to a global mobile gaming community and the ability to game with that community.

Perhaps this can only come to fruition with Symbian 9.1: We can't think of any reason that the "platform" has not already been launched. Also, it's unclear what will happen to existing n-gage users. The existing games will work, but the n-gage clearly is hardware limited compared to any new smartphone. Perhaps Nokia is planning something similar to what Microsoft has proposed...

Oh - and Spong, in reporting this story, made the prediction that "Nintendo is poised to release what has been described to us as a 'cell phone-inspired' redesigned DS complete with voice over IP capabilities." Even if correct, this would not impact Nokia's strategy - unless VOIP-only devices were suddenly as capable as normal phones.

Nokia today announced their newest online competition, the N-Gage Arena Anytime Anywhere Tournament, where players will demonstrate their prowess in the N-Gage Arena, meeting challenges delivered via text message that can arrive anytime, anywhere.

Players signup for the tournament and then watch for text message invitations notifying them that a competition is about to begin. Contestants will play each other in whichever game has been selected for that particular match. With twelve events in all, there will be plenty of chances to win.

The tournament will take place from January 9th through February 5th, 2006. Prizes include free N-Gage games, an N-Gage bag stuffed full of goodies, and more.

It will be interesting to see the number of participants. We know that 2 million n-Gages have been sold: but given that the first was sold more than 3 years ago, it's unlikely that all of the units are still in active use. We think this foreshadows the actualization of our prediction that n-Gage will become Arena-only, but from more handsets.

Update: Lik Sang has confirmed the price of the Gameboy DS at USD 169.90. If you pre-ordered from them, you should pay before 21st November to ensure your place in the line is retained.