"The consumer will have to make a decision: does he want a standalone gaming device with a limited browsing capability or a phone with an MP3 player, a camera and a bloody good games platform? I think consumers will be prepared to spend £300 on a phone that offers all those different things rather than £100 to £150 for a standalone games machine."
Martin O'Driscoll, the new head of Nokia's games division, is getting ready for a fight, according to Mobile Entertainment. After the colossal failure called the "N-Gage," Nokia is ready to go back into the portable games market, reinvigorated. As previously reported, it appears that Nokia will attempt to one-up Sony's strategy with the PSP, by offering even more functionality than Sony's portable. However, one should make note that more features doesn't necessarily equate to more sales, as the DS has proven in the handheld wars.
Will Nokia be able to survive a battle against Sony and Nintendo? Maybe, maybe not. However, if gaming cell phones catch on, Sony's sure to have backup ready.
[Via Esato]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-29-2006 @ 10:51PM
Carnie said...
no....once again nokia will spend millions of dollors investing in this wanna be swissarmy-handheld....i would like to know what game developers would take thier bribes let alone put a game on that eyesore....I wouldn't be caught dead talking on that thing....
I have a nintendo DS, and a PSP and they do thier purpous (sp)...though it's nice to have all the features of the psp...I wouldn't want it to have a phone attatchment....
If the past is any indication...phones and portable gaming dont' mix....
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11-29-2006 @ 10:54PM
Feedback said...
HAHAHAHAHA.
Oh god Nokia do you make me laugh :P
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11-29-2006 @ 11:23PM
ji said...
*nods head in shame for nokia*
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11-30-2006 @ 2:37AM
CyborgSPIKE said...
what!? wot a load of garbage! a standalone games platform with limited borwser capabiliteis!? wth!? and then a mp3 phone with a bl**dy good games platform!? have i ever herd so much trash in one sentence? he mr nokia! the psp can do mp3s just as well as ur phone, can watch any movies u wanna, and plays great games that are way better then sum phone! and wot are u stealing a touch sreen from DS as well? just great nokia. o and i suppose will be holding that great brick on our eer? if i wanted to do that i would 'brick' my psp(soz for the very bad pun folks) go away nokia and stay with ur phones.
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11-30-2006 @ 7:59AM
Alien said...
N-gage , thgought it wasnt that bad , it was a failure , they think if Sony can brake into the handeheld market so can they ... they are sooo wrong lol This will be a slaughterhaus lol
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11-30-2006 @ 9:17AM
theboi said...
i don't know man it has hard enough to being with for sony to do it consider now there acutaly a gaming company now and now they want to try this again with sony and nintendo when they didn't had a chance with just plan gba?
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11-30-2006 @ 5:48PM
Willferal said...
lol...why is there a warcraft III simulated image on the screen? Like you would want to play it with a handheld...
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11-30-2006 @ 7:14PM
Aragon said...
I've had my psp since launch day in the US. I was into the whole homebrew scene and all of that but after awile it got boring. After that my psp has just been sitting around collecting dust. I had high hopes for 3.00 but was let down again. I've been loyal to sony since the ps1 first came out. But after all of these years i think its time for me to sell my psp and the only reason why I still might get a ps3 would only be for the most part final fantasy and kingdom hearts. Sorry for babbling on just had to get that out of my system.
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11-30-2006 @ 7:39PM
Virtuous said...
Consumers have shown they will not pay a premium for devices with more features. Focused devices outsell feature-rich devices time and time again. I thought Nokia wanted customers to play games on their mainstream mass market phones, not phones with every feature known to mankind. I've got news for Nokia! Serious gamers won't play games on vertically designed phones. Most of the phones Nokia sells are either candy bar or flip style.
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11-30-2006 @ 7:41PM
pixelator said...
"and wot are u stealing a touch sreen from DS as well"
I'm not sure you'll understand this since your grasp of the written language is sorely in doubt -- but the DS wasn't the first handheld to play games with a stylus, nor was it the first gaming handheld with a touchscreen.
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11-30-2006 @ 11:02PM
4ham said...
Why does Nokia continue to hold onto this idea that Portal Gaming on Phones is the future? People on average change phones at least once a year to take advantage of better features and better deals. Why would anyone willingly get locked down in a service contract just so they can game?
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12-01-2006 @ 2:44PM
alienclay said...
to the execs at nokia, you need to pass what you are smokin' on to someone else. wasn't the original n-gage filled with features above the reigning competition at the time?
it is not, and never has been, easy to step into any console market. esp. handhelds.
untill the psp, nintendo has had many a would be contender step up with more features or what not and get knocked down like dominos sence 1989 with the game boy.
sony, with the playstation name behind it has been the only one to take a sizeable chunk and really make a name for itself in handhelds. for many reasons and qualitys which you lack nokia.
the very fact that you are pursuing this shows that you don't really understand why the n-gage failed. (yes it was poorly designed, yes it didn't have good support (for good reason), and yes you held on for far too long to that platform, but fixing these ideals isn't enough)
what's more, with the vast economic bloodbath that was the n-gage, you have established a huge distrust among the gaming community and various retailers. many believe the reason sega had a hard time trying to make a comback with the dreamcast was because of the distrust established with the failure of saturn and 32x. i really hope you have a plan in place to fix this problem.
read what Virtuous and 4ham have to say, then, if you really want to expand your markets into gaming and offer something new try making a standard 3d/cpu chipset and button layout that can be incorperated to all/most nokia phones and make it available to other cell phone manufacturers. maybe standerdize games so they can be ported from phone to phone like the numbers on my sim card.
just don't repeat your mistakes. it only makes youself looks stupid and games on phones as a whole will only take a step back in acceptance.
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12-01-2006 @ 4:31PM
Ricky said...
If they make a half decent machine, that will play good games, better than the psp, sure, i'll get it..
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12-01-2006 @ 5:21PM
Syzygy said...
Martin O'Driscoll - I'm sorry but you don't know what the hell you're 'sidetalkin' about!
http://www.sidetalkin.com/
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12-05-2006 @ 7:18PM
ninja said...
The only feature that could save a device such as this; Broadband Internet Access. Like services offered for laptops, if this phone can or any could, that would be a true contender in the portable market.
Though, what makes or breaks a console or device for me are the controls... can I adjust?
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