Nokia initially announced their N-Gage multiplayer mobile game device on November 5th, 2002, but they just gave the full preview which revealed their plans for the new gaming platform.
N-Gage has a profile that will be familiar to players of handheld game consoles such as Nintendo's GameBoy; it is wider than it is tall (unlike a mobile phone), and it has a color screen at center, with a variety of buttons to either side of the screen to be used with the thumbs.
N-Gage differs from other portable game devices in one important way: It is specifically designed for multiplayer, connected gameplay. Although it's capable of running the kinds of single player games familiar on other devices, it also contains a Bluetooth port, and the ability to connect over the air network - GSM and GPRS
The point of N-Gage is that it will attempt to be a mobile phone and a hand-held gaming device. What it will try to do is change the perception of mobile phone gaming while at the same time challenging Nintendo's GBA.
The device will be launched in February 2003 and will face the same problem next generation consoles faced when dealing with PS2. Nintendo already have a giagantic lead, by the end of 2003 they will have sold 50 million units worldwide. What Nokia are hoping for is that consumers will see their product as a hand-held console with a difference.
Gaming content will be very important and Nokia plan put up a fight. N-Gage will come pre-loaded with five games, with further titles developed by Nokia and third parties. Sega has already signed up, and Nokia hopes other major publishers will join. In order to become more competitive, Nokia plans to distribute games by memory card, rather than by phone, allowing games to be more complex than current wireless games, and therefore more of a threat to GBA titles.
Games will be available on memory cards (MMCs) capable of holding several megabytes of data. Nokia have not announced how these cards will be distributed, but say their plans are based on an established business model in the games industry. Nokia will act as game publisher; the release announcing the device says Nokia will be joined by other top game publishers.
Another thing going for Nokia is that profit margins for game developers for the GameBoy Advance are very tight. A new platform offering better deals is likely to attract current GBA developers, as long as it can promise to deliver continuity and if anyone can it is Nokia.
Some of the main questions raised about the new device and its potential success concern the hardware.
Bluetooth technology is limited in range - typically to around 10 meters - but offers very low latency, about at the same level as the Internet. Thus, N-Gage offers the possibility of fast-action multiplayer games playable by nearby friends - first-person shooters, real-time strategy games, and the like. The ability to connect via an over the air network offers the possibility of playing against people half the globe away - and the possibility of massively multiplayer games, with thousands of people playing in the same game world. However, latency over air networks is typically an order of magnitude higher than over the wired Internet (multiple seconds of delay between one machine and the next). This makes it hard to develop fast action multiplayer games that rely on the air network - but turn-based games are entirely feasible.
Another issue raised by N-Gage is its chances to succeed when it will, by definition, not be available in the Japanese market. Nokia does not support Japan's mobile protocol and will therefore, not be able to sell N-Gage in the Japanese market. This means that the new device will miss, what is possibly, the biggest hand-held market, while risking the chance of alienating Japanese game developers.
Whatever its shortcomings, N-Gage has a lot going for it. Nokia is very strong in the European market and that particular market is also expanding in that direction. The time is right for a hand-held game console - mobile phone hybrid. Nokia has the strength and public relations to actually pull something of this scale off.
The chances of Nokia actually becoming a threat to Nintendo are, realistically, very slim. The main challenge for Nokia is to create a device which will deliver gaming and mobile phone functionality and will survive long enough to allow them to create the infra-structure to present a future threat to their hand-held gaming console rivals.
