November 1st, 2009 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Analysis & Editorial, Platforms: Symbian | No Comments »
Many where sceptical when Nokia launched N-Gage for the second time around, but after months and months of rumours, Nokia finally admitted defeat last Friday.
The second introduction of N-Gage was already a step in a new direction. In it's first round, N-Gage was a hardware platform with taco shaped phones no consumer really liked, and sold it's games via retail on special SD's.
At the second launch, N-Gage went live as a games download and community service. Though a community service is very hot these days, this one was limited to N-Gage games. Next to that, a lot of consumers where told that N-Gage would run on the entire N-Series of phones. Yet again consumers where disappointed as one of the most popular phones in that time (the N73) never received the promised support as the device was too weak to run the games.
But there where more problems then those of the consumers… Building an N-Gage game was very expensive as the titles where very high of quality, but unable to be sold over additional channels (though at some point, Nokia did encourage operators to start talking about that). This made a solid return on investment, a gamble and so, many developers didn't take the chance.
The first sign of defeat became clear when Nokia announced to start selling N-Gage games via it's new Ovi store. Though it would be a 'second' sales channel at first, rumours reached us back then that Nokia had already started to prepare the shut-down of the N-Gage service.
So now, N-Gage subscribers have all received an e-mail, pointing them to the Ovi store to buy their new N-Gage titles and/or other games in a mailing titled 'Ovi Store is here!'. Next to pointing out the availability of the N-Gage titles, consumers are also informed about the possibility to download applications, audio & video and other personalisation items. On the N-Gage blog, consumers are explained why they took this step and what will happen. The whole network will stay online throughout 2010 and then be taken offline. By that time, Nokia might have an alternative Community Network for posting scores on Ovi. The question is if developers like the idea of developing and signing separate builds for this channel. There will be no new releases on the N-Gage store but purchased games will keep working (at least offline). New devices will no longer have the N-Gage client pre-installed.
“Thank you for being part of the N-Gage community and your participation over the years. It is important we share this information with you first as we know how much the N-Gage Community means to you, and that being up to date on the latest gaming information is of importance.” The Nokia Games Team.
I have personally reviewed various N-Gage games for Dutch magazines and websites. I must say the service was fun, but also hard to understand for consumers that weren't into mobile gaming already. We wish the team all the best with their new (gaming adventures).
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