The N-Gage is a mobile gaming console that doubles as a phone, but does it combine the best of both worlds or represent a mistake on Nokia's part?
This week Nokia psuedo-launched the N-Gage. What's a psuedo-launch? That's where you invite a large portion of the press to show off your latest technological wares, then announce that they will only be available "in time for Christmas". Based on Sony Ericsson's long-running P800 saga, we weren't quite brave enough to ask which year they were referring to.
The N-Gage is a mobile gaming console that doubles as a phone, and is Nokia's attempt to break into the high-growth games market, now that the market for mobile phones is beginning to plateau.
Journalists from all over Asia were taken to the White Bay Power Station, a decrepit building in Sydney, for a launch party more reminiscent of underground warehouse raves than next-gen technology launches.
The hype around the N-Gage has been significant, and in the brief time we had to look at the device it seemed to live up to most of it. There are still problems to be sorted out and questions to be answered before we can give it a definitive thumbs up.
The N-Gage is larger than a normal phone, at 133.7 x 69.7 x 20.2 mm, and weighs in at 137 g. While it's certainly too big to be a serious contender as a pure mobile phone, it's certainly a lot smaller than most games consoles. Nokia chooses to describe it as "a wireless game console" rather than a phone.
The 176 x 208 pixel screen boasts 4096 colours. We've seen better mobile phone screens, but more impressive are the graphics, which maintain a smooth level of animation in the early game titles we got to sample. Game play is significantly better than what you'd find on a mobile phone, and is at the level of the Gameboy Advance-although the screen is smaller. A mobile car racing game that is absolutely hopeless on phones works quite well on the N-Gage.
The layout of the phone makes it easy to use, although the commands are not as intuitive as could be hoped for. Sometimes you have to use the soft-key to select the option you wish, sometimes you have to press down the directional 'rocker' and other times you press '5' or '7'. This obviously has a lot to do with the games developers and how they want to have people navigating the games menus, but it might have been a good idea for Nokia to set some broad guidelines for navigation that developers had to follow.
In some cases the only way we could start a game once we had finished was to leave the game entirely and re-enter. Of course, there are several months till the N-Gage is launched and we assume the games will have bugs ironed out, or will come with instruction manuals.
The games themselves are sold separately on game cards, which allows for additionally memory and reduces developers reliance on Nokia as a distribution channel. However, to change the card you have to take the battery out of the phone to access the slot. We're unsure why Nokia didn't create a device with an external plug.
There are a number of games already completed for the N-Gage, including big name titles such as SonicN, Tomb Raider, Snowboarding II and Pandemonium. Cult games such as Space Invaders and Puzzle Bobble are also available.
Naturally, the main benefit of the N-Gage is the ability to wirelessly play multiplayer games, either over Bluetooth or GPRS. We didn't manage to test these capabilities. Realistically, Bluetooth should allow seamless game play while GPRS would not allow real-time game play. Nokia are positioning themselves for 3G, which should allow seamless real-time game play over long distances.
The number of games available will increase, and there is already talk of real-time strategy games in the pipeline, although how this would work on a small screen and whether the N-Gage can handle the often high levels of processing power required to run these games we're not sure. We're more excited about turn-based strategy games, which could use existing GPRS technology to allow large groups of people to play with no significant loss of gaming experience.
The battery life of the phone is cited as 3-6 hours game time, 2-4 hours talk time, 150-200 hours standby, up to 8 hours of music or 20 hours of radio. If gaming doesn't drain the battery fast enough, it'll also double as a radio and MP3 player.
All in all, on a first look basis the N-Gage is quite impressive, but the main question on everyone's lips - how much will one cost - remains unanswered. Given that Nokia's going head to head with Nintendo, whose AU$199 Gameboy Advance SP launches in late March, the pricing question will probably determine the fate of the N-Gage more than any number of additional features will.
Nokia N-Gage
Company: Nokia
Price: AU$TBA
Release date TBA
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