Ten Plausible Things that would be Really Cool on N-Gage

There are many things that we would like to see on N-Gage, but you can't always get what you want. Instead, here's a list of ten suggestions for the future of N-Gage which we think are fairly plausible, and which may help the N-Gage platform in the long term:


1. The Actual Launch

Yes, tongue slightly in cheek here, but we've been waiting for Next Gen N-Gage for quite some time. Some of us remember when it was supposed to launch in 2006! We know it's almost ready as the public beta testing has already begun, and there don't seem to be too many bugs.

It would be really cool if: Nokia brought out the full N-Gage service for all compatible phones and released all the finished games.


2. Releasing Lament Island on N-Gage

Lament Island is a beautiful game, with lovely graphics, wonderful music and some interesting use of the phone's microphone and camera. It's an S60 3rd Edition game so it's technically no different to other new N-Gage games, and it works in QVGA resolution in both landscape and portrait mode, so it should be playable on all N-Gage-compatible phone models. The developers have said in an interview that they will support the new N-Gage plaform if asked. On top of all that, Lament Island is a Chinese game. China is Nokia's biggest market and getting bigger all the time, and forging relationships with Chinese game developers now may be key to N-Gage's future success.

You can see All About Symbian's megagame review of Lament Island here, and there's a gameplay video of Lament Island here.

It would be really cool if: Lament Island could be brought to a wider audience by being sold through N-Gage.


3. Free games as prizes

The original N-Gage Arena didn't really have many prizes as such, just online scoreboards with the occasional contest featuring real rewards such as gamecards, phones and t-shirts. Now that Next Gen N-Gage is here with its downloadable games, perhaps Nokia might give free games to the winners of all regular tournaments and other Nokia-sponsored competitions? Third party games might be a problem, but first party games should be easy to arrange as Nokia owns the rights to them.

It would be really cool if: the winners of organised events on N-Gage Arena received free games.


4. Cricket games

Some people (especially those in North America and most of Europe) may laugh at the idea of Cricket-based video games, and these same people may dismiss it as a minor sport played by a small number of eccentric English people. In fact Cricket is one of the world's largest sports, with more people following it than Baseball, American Football, Basketball or Golf. Cricket is particularly strong in emerging markets including India, which is now well on its way to overtaking Europe and America economically and has a population greater than Europe and the USA combined. India is also Nokia's second largest market now, and its share is still growing.

It would be really cool if: there was some kind of Cricket game franchise on N-Gage. Most Cricket fans have a phone but no console, so Cricket games are arguably a natural fit for phone gaming.


5. Bluetooth controller

Many N-Gage phones (including the Nokia N82, N93, N95 and N96) have a TV Out feature, which lets you play games or use any other function on a real television set. Some games play very well on a big screen, but it would be even better if you didn't have to be crouched in front of the set using a phone on the end of a short cable to control the game. There already is a wireless alternative, you can control games using a Bluetooth wireless keyboard, which works on all N-Gage phones. However, keyboards generally don't have a good layout for gaming and you can't hold them in your hands like a controller. An increasing number of people in the world have a TV and phone but no console, so this kind of setup might well be the future of gaming if someone could solve the controller problem.

Some small third party companies have actually made Bluetooth controllers for phones in the past, but several vital ingredients were missing: the phones didn't have TV Out, the phones' screen resolutions were much lower than today, and the phones' screens only worked in vertical/portrait mode. All of those problems have now been corrected, and N-Gage provides a good source of games, so we need the Bluetooth controllers back.

It would be really cool if: someone at Nokia (or any other manufacturer) took the insides of a Bluetooth keyboard, removed the letter keys, and put the remaining hardware in a controller-shaped casing, perhaps with the horizontal layout of the original N-Gage. It wouldn't require any new drivers or software or research, the existing Bluetooth keyboard software built into N-Gage phones is already good enough, and the cost of doing this would be minimal. Everything a Bluetooth controller requires is already in place and ready to go, it just needs one small step to actually make it happen.

If Nokia is nervous about comparisons with home games consoles, they could call it a "Multimedia Controller" or something like that, and say that it's a general remote control for phones with TV Out.


6. Something like Habbo

In case anyone's unaware, Habbo (formerly known as Habbo Hotel) is a popular online community for PC users which consists of a Lego-like isometric virtual world. Its cute graphics have tended to appeal to younger users (indeed its current strapline is "Hangout for teens"), but the general principle behind it has appeal for people of all ages, and Sony is about to launch something similar but more grown-up called "Home" for its PlayStation 3 games console.

It would be really cool if: there was something like Habbo Hotel for the N-Gage community, a sort of real world for Arena users to explore, something midway between a chat room and an online game. Perhaps it could be accessible on both phones and PCs?

(Incidentally, one of the "lost" games from Next Gen N-Gage was Habbo Islands, which was an official tie-in with the owners of Habbo. Unfortunately nothing has been heard about the game since 2006 so it's presumably been cancelled, but it was never intended as a multiplayer experience anyway. It was to consist of offline gameplay involving mini-games on a tropical island drawn in a Habbo style.)


7. Location Based Games

A lot of interesting things have been produced by individual programmers, and one of the most interesting for N-Gage phones was the freeware tech demo The Journey. It used the serial numbers of nearby mobile phone masts to determine where you were, and to progress in the game you had to physically walk from one place to the other. It won awards because it showed a way of blurring the line between real and virtual worlds, as the player would associate the virtual world with the real world (for example your local supermarket in the real world might be a bar full of hoodlums in the virtual world).

To be honest, there wasn't much gameplay in the original Journey, it was mainly intended as a free demonstration of the concept. A more playable commercial sequel "The Journey II" was released soon afterwards though.

It would be really cool if: at least one location-based N-Gage game was published, perhaps using GPS instead of phone masts as there are so many GPS-compatible N-Gage phones available or on the way, and GPS is much more accurate in relating virtual world distances to real world ones.


8. Gaming festival for indie developers

There are a lot of small mobile gaming developers out there, who often make very good games but can't reach a wide audience, or have very good ideas for games but don't have the resources to polish them to a commercial standard.

It would be really cool if: There was a regular gaming festival on N-Gage where new ideas were given a chance to shine on a widely used gaming platform. Perhaps this is close to what Nokia intends with their Mobile Games Innovation Challenge?


9. "Lifestyle" games


N-Gage is for games, but what ARE games? The recent surprise success of titles such as Wii Fit and the Brain/Maths/English Training series on consoles has shown that owners of gaming platforms are quite willing to buy more serious applications if their serious purpose is presented in a fun and easy-to-use way. Perhaps Nokia could do something similar on N-Gage, for example more friendly versions of their Sports Tracker or Wellness Diary?

It would be really cool if: Nokia made some games which served some kind of useful purpose in a fun way. After all, the main reason why people carry a phone with them everywhere is because it's a useful tool.


10. Theme downloads

One of the coolest things you can do with an N-Gage phone is to install a new theme which changes all the backgrounds, menus and icons.

It would be really cool if: the new N-Gage platform had a theme download section, perhaps with themes inspired by the games just like the old "fanpacks" on the original gen N-Gage site. Might we suggest hiring Babi, P@sco and Pizero?

http://www.allaboutngage.com/feature..._on_N-Gage.php