Let me answer all of your dying questions now. The Nokia N?Gage will be unleashed upon the world on October 7th of this year with 10 games under its belt and 10 more promised for the holidays. A memory stick, coupled with thin cartridge video games will quench your portable gaming needs. And it will cost exactly $299.
For a few months now, Nokia has been hyping its portable game deck in hopes of raising the public?s interest. How could they go wrong? It?s a radio, MP3 player, phone, Internet access device, and most importantly, a handheld gaming platform. Titles like Tomb Raider, Tony Hawk?s Pro Skater, and most recently, Red Faction are all slated to make it to this portable entertainment system by the 2003 holidays.
Nokia, the developers of the N?Gage, have honed their point of mass market penetration on that of multiplayer goodness. The online capabilities of the system include not only a close quarters wireless LAN called Blue Tooth, but also a wireless long distance networking ability. For a minute fee that depends on the phone service, this will allow the user to view what games are being played, how many players are in each of them, and lets them decide which one they want to join.
Upon its global release in early October, the N?Gage will have 10 titles available for sale. Nokia?s partners include such powerhouses as SEGA, Eidos, THQ, and Ubi Soft?s online division, Gameloft. All of the first wave of its titles will be ports of current games on the market, but they will also have the multiplayer features that make them worthy of the online community.
Wary of the importance of game content and the amount of launch titles, Nokia has sprouted an in?house development department. Their first game, Pathway to Glory, will be released in Spring 2004. Though we saw no footage of this title, it alludes to the same genre that games like Commandos fall under. You, in control of nothing but your N?Gage and a band of elite soldiers, get to take on the Axis powers in southern Europe during the height of WWII.
But will it make it? With Sony?s announcement of its handheld, the PSP, and Nintendo already with a firm chokehold on the handheld market, the N?Gage doesn?t seem like it will stand a chance. All of its launch titles, and most of its second wave of games, will be ports that look worse than their console/PC counterparts. Its high price tag of $299 smackeroos will not only scare away the casual market Nokia is shooting for, but probably drive them to rival products. Granted, the games we have seen are Alphas, but their graphics won?t improve much.
Yet, Nokia knows mobile, and outside companies have a strange knack of making it big in this industry (cough cough, Sony, cough, ack, Microsoft, cough). Only time will tell, and we?ll all be waiting impatiently until early October to see those crucial sales figures, and most importantly, to get our hands on this little gizmo to take for a full online spin.
