N-Gage

Nintendo is King of the handheld-market. But now, Nokia seems to be keen to take that title...

Nokia is going to try what other companies couldn't: defeat Nintendo on the handheld-market. But Nokia has some advantages in comparison with previous handheld-producers: a well-known name, Bluetooth technology and a gigantic network.

Since the Nokia 3210, owners can use their mobile phone to play games. However, the games like Snake and Bantumi couldn't match the enormous amount of games for the GBA.
Nokia realised this and is now producing a mobile phone, based on gaming (what ever happened to using your phone for calling?): The N-Gage wsa born.

According to Nokia, this will be the first GSM capable of delivering qualitiy games and also multiplaying abilities (using Bluetooth or normal network). Sega is already rumoured to be one of the first 3th party developers for the N-Gage.

Press Release:
Nokia brings mobility to the Games Industry by making Rich Games Mobile
November 04, 2002

Nokia has today announced that it will bring mobility to the games industry by offering console quality games for its new mobile game deck device category. Nokia will expand the gaming experience by bringing a wireless multiplay platform to the market for both local and remote gaming. Based on an established business model in the games industry, Nokia will take rich mobile games to a new level by utilizing the full potential of mobility. As mobile network capacity increases over time, mobile gaming interactivity will also reach new levels together with game optimized mobile devices that offer consumers a truly rich, interactive mobile gaming experience.

"Games are an exciting way to communicate and connect with a larger community of like minded people. Rich mobile games, combined with connected near distance multiplayer gaming over Bluetooth and wide area gaming using cellular networks, opens the door for totally new gaming concepts. Mobility will add a whole new dimension to innovative and creative games concepts and will provide opportunities for the games and telecom industry alike," said Anssi Vanjoki, Executive Vice President, Nokia Mobile Phones."

Rich mobile gaming represents an appealing business opportunity for game publishers and operators. Nokia will be working with top games publishers and developers to provide the most appealing games catalogue for consumers. The rich games will be distributed on memory cards, and Nokia will also act as a game publisher. Operators will gain new revenue streams through increased data use and outbox memory game cards will complement operators' current game business by bringing rich quality games to game optimized mobile devices.

As an initial step in the converging trends in enabling technologies, and also in devices, Nokia will introduce the first game optimized device in its mobile game deck category, the Nokia N-GageTM mobile game deck device, together with branded game titles from top games publishers and developers in February 2003. The Nokia N-GageTM mobile game deck will run on the Nokia Series 60 platform and the Symbian OS (Operating System).

Share on Twitter or FacebookPosted on 05-10-2002 by Dennis

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