Recap From Nokia Games Summit
We let you know about the Nokia Games Summit taking place in Rome earlier, and wanted to recap some of the exciting stuff taking place over there in Rome. According to MoCoNews.net, Jaakko Kaidesoja, Nokia’s Head of Gaming, has opened the event by stating that the gaming market isn’t expected to grow very much through 2009, but that Nokia will remain steadfast, specifically with N-Gage.
N-Gage stats released include 400,000 profiles, as well as 20 million N-Gage-compatible devices on the market currently. I found it interesting that 80% of N-Gage games were purchased using an operator-billing option, as that option isn’t available in the U.S. or in other countries. I wonder where exactly that majority is from. Another gem is that touch support for N-Gage (for the 5800 XpressMusic and others, no doubt) is planned for next year.
On the other side of the fence, N-Gage developer EA Mobile wasn’t nearly as optimistic as Nokia, calling N-Gage thus far a ’soft-launch’, and that the single-build-for-multiple-handsets promise that N-Gage was supposed to bring isn’t quite there yet. Peter Parmenter, of EA Mobile, also stated that his company earns twice as much revenue from an iPhone game than they do from an N-Gage game. That statistic is worrisome, as it’s per-purchase, so it doesn’t account for the number of copies sold. N-Gage needs to really make sure that it is competitive in terms of getting developers on board, for sure. Also concerning is Parmenter’s statement that, ‘I think it’s easier to get an audience with the Pope than it is to get a game through certification at Nokia.’ Nokia, that’s NOT something you want someone as big as EA Mobile saying about your gaming platform.
Regardless, EA announced that, through 2009, it would release FIFA 09, Spore Origins, Monopoly Here & Now, Need for Speed Undercover, The Sims 3, and my favorite, Tiger Woods PGA Tour on the N-Gage gaming platform.
Also at the Nokia Games Summit, Nokia announced another upcoming game, dubbed Dance Fabulous. Designed to be ultra-customised, Dance Fabulous will allow users to use the music already stored on their device and create their own avatars for dance competitions. Quite honestly, I think I’m going to have to see that one to get excited about it.
Also, the winners of the Mobile Games Innovation Challenge were announced at the Nokia Games Summit. First place was Ghostwire, an augmented reality game that uses your phone’s built-in camera and GPS to ‘find’ ghosts and other things in the real world. There’s some serious potential for fun stuff like this, and I’m interested to see more entrants. Developers ‘A Different Game’ scored 40,000EUR to continue development.
Second and third place went to Melokey and Watchers, respectively. Melokey combines music and social networking to allow players to create music and then play it against others. Sounds rather interesting, as well. Watchers is an adventure-themed game that uses physical location and context to exploit augmented reality, where players must be in a specific physical location to continue playing. There are non-real episodes, too, for those who can’t travel about.
All in all, the Nokia Games Summit sounds like it was a crashing success, and I’m looking forward to seeing more come out of Nokia’s gaming focus. What about you? Does anything specific excite you about mobile gaming?
And there is no reason why Ngage shouldn't "just run" on S60 phones. The E71's 320x240 screen would be even better for most games than the usual 240x320 found in Nseries devices.
Most of the slowness in Nokia's reaction is due to the non-uniform software platform. As N-gage is almost purely ecosystem driven, it smells like doom.
And a harsh reaction to "a flat market in 2009": it will be for Nokia, but it's not the market potential, which is flat...