Next Nokia's N-Gage More Fun on Game

Nokia will revive N-Gage as a multiplayer gaming service that will work on its popular line of smartphones. The service will offer games from major publishers like Electronic Arts, as well as smaller developers like Digital Chocolate that focus on the mobile gaming market.

Owners of phones that run N-Gage software will be able to play games against friends, sample, buy and recommend new games from their phones, and compete in large tournaments.

Nokia product manager, said the old 2003 N-Gage and its successor, 2004’s N-Gage QD, were good ideas that were ahead of their time. “Today’s phones are so capable. The graphics problem has been removed. And phones today are always connected and you always carry them with you. Phones are now the perfect device for gaming.”

The original N-Gage and its successor were anything but perfect. The phones were primarily intended to compete with portable gaming consoles like the Nintendo DS and the Sony PlayStation Portable. Convenience was apparently an afterthought. Owners had to remove the battery to insert gaming cartridges and had to hoist the bulky device to their heads and hold it sideways to make an actual call.

In 2005 and 2006, members of Nokia’s N-Gage team spent time with Ideo designers in San Francisco. The groups took research trips to six cities around the world, including Barcelona, Tokyo and Shanghai, to study how people played games and what they wanted from games on their phones.

In Shanghai, they met one avid female gamer who said she had become discouraged when she logged onto a popular Chinese gaming service and was frequently crushed by superior players.

The Ideo and Nokia executives concluded that users mainly want to play against their friends and, at the very least, they want to know the skill level of their opponents. As a result, the new N-Gage permits users to see what games their friends have on their phones and whether they are online. They can also see how many points a person has earned in the game, as well as how much time they devote to solitary play versus group play.

The researchers also asked players what their greatest frustrations were. High on the list was buying a game that turned out to be disappointing.

In the new N-Gage service, customers will be able to sample games free before buying them. The selection will lean toward the casual side of gaming, with soccer and fishing titles and the popular puzzle game Bejeweled, among others. Nokia has not yet discussed prices.

Ideo also noted that many users had never discovered most of the features of the original N-Gage. So the designers helped Nokia put shortcuts on the main N-Gage screen to display information without forcing users to dig through menus. They also urged Nokia to streamline the service by giving up some features, like “positive distraction,” the diversions users see while they are downloading a game.