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Five things Nokia needs to do to keep N-Gage in the game

How to take a big bite out of the Apple

Five things Nokia needs to do to keep N-Gage in the game
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It's been a relatively slow start for Nokia's N-Gage platform, with an understated (and much delayed) official launch in April and a subsequent drip feed of fresh games. Things have been complicated, of course, by the runaway success of Apple's iPhone and its App Store, which turned up three months after the Nokia service.

The competition will only get tougher in 2009, with Apple set to go from strength to strength and Google's open source Android platform set to receive a retail model and full-on gaming support in the first quarter.

Java games, too, remain popular and appear to be transcending their limitations with the ever-increasing sophistication of some of the top titles.

But attempts to write the Finnish giants off as a portable gaming force are a little premature. After all, the platform has been in existence for well short of a year, and it has already made a number of notable contributions to our gaming year. ONE finally showed off the system's graphical chops, while in Reset Generation we saw one of the best games of 2008.

Still, the fact remains that much work is left to be done if N-Gage is to stay in the game. Here are our suggestions for what Nokia should be doing to stay relevant in an increasingly Apple-shaped world.

1. Quantity of games
The first and most obvious point is a simple matter of numbers – we haven't seen nearly enough games for the N-Gage platform. Given its three-month lead over Apple's offering, it's shocking to see a paltry 24 titles on offer compared to the iPhone's one hundred squillion (conservative estimate).

Promisingly, Nokia has recently confirmed that 21 further titles are due out in 2008 and 2009, but we would hope that most of these are on the market by the time the platform celebrates its first birthday. Ambitious? Maybe, but that's precisely what Nokia needs to be if it's going to stay in the game.

2. N-Gage needs more Reset Generations
While it may not have sold in quite the numbers Nokia might privately have hoped for, or carried the N-Gage platform to all new dizzying heights, Reset Generation created a buzz in the specialist gaming press. It was even granted an all-too-rare (not to mention positive) review in specialist magazine Edge, which usually wouldn't touch mobile phone gaming with a rolled up Wii waiting list.

Of course, specialist press coverage and critical praise is hardly a guarantee of sales success, but a sustained level of buzz from the margins will inevitably get N-Gage noticed by a larger mainstream audience. What's more, it would lead to the thriving community of core gamers that Nokia so clearly desires.

3. A level hardware playing field
Those of us who opted for an N73 a year ago amidst promises of N-Gage support will know all about erratic hardware support for the N-Gage platform. We could accept that as an early technical oversight, though, and a subsequent upgrade to a swanky N95 soon found us happily N-Gaged.

But it's a little disconcerting to see that Nokia is still releasing handsets without hardware graphics acceleration (such as the new N79). While developers are having to make their games scalable for lesser units, or catering for the lowest common denominator, the platform will never reach its full potential. Meanwhile uniformly specced (and 3D accelerated) systems like the iPhone will walk away with the technical plaudits for their fully optimised games.

4. Nokia should forge its own niche
The recent unveiling of the flagship N97 handset doubtless had all of us mobile tech fans excited, and the subsequent comments made by N-Gage VP Jaako Kaidesoja about widescreen and touchscreen implementation no doubt had Nokia fans dreaming of beating Apple at its own game.
But as well as promoting further hardware fragmentation, such a move could be ignoring the N-Gage's existing unique attributes.

There's still much to be said for physical, traditional gaming controls – as players of the many bodged iPhone conversions out there will attest to – and N-Gage remains fairly unique in that area. Weirdly, there remains a niche market for classically controlled gamers' games on a mobile device, and it's not one that Nokia should be looking to dilute by jumping on any bandwagons any time soon. This leads us to…

5. Emphasise the N-Gage's network abilities
The N-Gage's community and networking set-up is brilliant – slick, easy to use and flexible. No other portable platform has anything to touch it. Nokia should really leap on this and push the social side of the N-Gage experience.

Users of Xbox Live will know that you don't necessarily need to play against people online for your experience to be enhanced by online connectivity – just knowing that your friends are on their system at the same time and peeking at what they're doing is a compelling reason to support a platform.

That said, the option to play against other people online should be made standard for appropriate N-gage titles. When leading releases like FIFA 09 don't permit you to do this, it can only be seen as a missed opportunity for all parties.

So that's our five tips for Nokia N-Gage domination. But we want to hear your views – you can do so by posting a comment.
Jon Mundy
Jon Mundy
Jon is a consummate expert in adventure, action, and sports games. Which is just as well, as in real life he's timid, lazy, and unfit. It's amazing how these things even themselves out.