New Devices, Same Games

In the next few months, we're going to see a whole bunch of devices designed for fancy mobile gaming. Something costing more than $200 that runs like a Palm, keeping track of your appointments, while also managing a few games of Tony Hawk.

So what? The nGage and TapWave are all launching with big licenses and little multiplayer. I'm still waiting for a mobile phone game that's both social and addictive. After surveying the initial offerings from a few of the mobile device, I will sadly say the innovations are in the hardware only (if that).

Hopefully, these new mobile gaming machines will be a platform for game designs as yet unseen, games harnessing the immense potential of a constantly networked personal media device. I bemoan all this at greater length here: TheFeature :: New Devices, Same Games.

Comments

[Stewart Butterfield]

We're working on it :)

And I think that others must (?) be doing the same thing: the idea of developing a mobile-only persistent world game seems nuts (to me) but the idea of building access clients for J2ME, etc., makes perfect sense: see which of your friends are online, send and receive messages, restock your store, vote in an election, etc.

2004-2005 will see a lot of this kind of thing, I suspect.

[hunter]

Hallelujah! Am I the only one who rather play a good multiplayer game of hangman on my wireless device before trying to "immerse myself" in a hopelessly inferior port of Red Faction?

[Vertigo]

"The best game for mobile multiplayer hasnt yet been invented."
Yes it has. Mobile multiplayer in Advance Wars would be a truly great thing, and it wouldn't even need to be live or take lag into account due to the turn-based nature of the game. A simple SMS-like message after each turn would work just fine. Of course, this should all have already been happening, were it not for Nintendo and their backwards attitude to technology advancement. Perhaps Sony, Nokia or Tapwave will give them a much-needed kick up the bum.

[PreacherBoy]

Here's hoping that nGage sets itself up as the biggest flop in gaming history. Bigger than Daikatana 2!

[misuba]

I don't hope for any such thing, PreacherBoy. Why not hope that N-Gage will correct its flaws and eventually offer gaming options that make us happy? This first rendition of the hardware is badly flawed, and whoever's in charge of game development evangelism needs to understand their market about ten times better, but those are solvable problems over the long term. And I don't see anyone else right now with a better shot at understanding and serving the untapped market for global gaming than Nokia - Sony's not going to get beyond the otaku with mobile EverQuest (is there even Bluetooth in the announced PSP specs?), Nintendo shows no signs of understanding online gaming of any kind (although that could change, and they are well set up in other ways to make the GBA's eventual successor a big force in this area), and Palm doesn't seem to be making it a priority (sorry, but Tapwave can't do it alone).

[justin@bud.com]

I must agree with Misuba here - let's see success from any comer, someone with innovative ideas and a good ear for gamers. New ways to play on unpredicted platforms. In spite of their Operating System heavy-handedness, Microsoft has been an inspiring entrant to the gaming scene. The Xbox has enlarged the playing field! Hard drives, online gaming. As President Bush said, "Bring it on!"

[Snowmit]

There is no point in making a networked game until you have a large enough installed userbase for the game to have a chance of being fun to play. So it makes sense that early n-gage titles wouldn't be the kind of ground breaking thing you want.

[Brain From Arous]

Did I get this right... you actually have to take the damned thing apart (remove battery cover and battery) to change games? You must be kidding. What design genius let that one slip through?!

[ClockworkGrue]

I would point out that the difficulty in changing games will only be a factor if there are two really good launch titles for the N-Gage. My gaming habits on my GBA are such that when I get a new game, it just kinda stays in the machine until I'm done with it, or sometimes until I get a new game, even if that isn't for a few months afterward. For all intents and purposes, I could be required to unscrew a game from my GBA with a hex-head screwdriver and it wouldn't really be a problem (except psychologically).

I'm thinking that, if the N-Gage is like most new systems (and is lucky), it will have one game worth buying, a "system seller" to use the term the kids in marketing came up with.

walk slow

[Vertigo]

This was meant to be short and to the point, but it's not, as I am wont. Sorry. I hope I make some valid observations though.

Snowmit: "There is no point in making a networked game until you have a large enough installed userbase for the game to have a chance of being fun to play."
That's sort of two seperate issues. But there is a point in launching with a network game, see, it's what's called a killer app or a system seller. It's the title you need to get the machine out there to everyone, and if it's a game that has excellent online play specs, in order to penetrate the market it needs to have a great single player basis too, in order to keep you busy while the install base grows, or when you don't fancy playing against other people, and that's the part you've addressed about fun. Control is a massive factor in whether a game's fun, and Nokia seem to have already bodged that up. By and large, whenever a consumer buys a new games system, their close mates, family, associates, will take a look at it and on the strength of that, often buy one too. Sadly, the vast majority of announced software for the NGage is utter cock, or very old crap that's available elsewhere for less than a fiver and simply not worth the investment unless you have more money than sense. Original exclusive titles will be what sells the machine, not some cut-down hard-to-control 7-year-old PlayStation tat that doesn't even work as well as the original. What with the recent announcements of Vodafone and Eriksson signing up Tomb Raider games too, Nokia's chances of survival are looking less stable than 3DO.

ClockworkGrue: "For all intents and purposes, I could be required to unscrew a game from my GBA with a hex-head screwdriver and it wouldn't really be a problem (except psychologically)." But they're not selling it to you, or me, or the majority of people here, or current gamers in general. They're trying to sell the thing to the mass market, the mobile phone users who play Snake all the damn time, the same people who feel that having a console under their TV is for geeks and nerdy spotty teenaged boys. Of course, these people couldn't be more wrong, and if the N-Gage is a success, it'll do a lot for gaming. Sadly, I don't think it will make even a scratch on the surface, but really my opinion counts for nothing. You may be happy to unscrew the thing and change games, but you seem to be a dedicated gamer. Taking your example, how would you feel sitting there on a train bouncing around trying to keep track of all the screws while you take apart and put back together your machine? Not to mention the risks of getting crap in it, losing parts, dropping it on the floor and getting it stood on. Now imagine doing that standing up in a crowded train too. It's faulty design at it's worst. For any sort of mass-market penetration attempt to be a success, a product has to be as instantly plug and play as possible. Why do you think your parents can play a video, but not actually program the thing to record on timer? You put a cassette in and press play, and it goes. Plug and play. Whereas the programming takes numerous steps and processes. Bad design. (Of course, the advent of VideoPlus+ numbers and the American equivalent go some way to rectify this, but it's a bit late).
I reiterate: They're not selling to us.

[misuba]

THe hardware flaws of the N-Gage are not the point, they'll be fixed within six months. Guaranteed. But if they can't get a killer app by then - meaning, if they can't get something networked, turn-based to respect the time of adults who can afford the device, and de-geeked to appeal to them - they're cooked.

[Snowmit]

I think that you'd be better off making these games for a large already-installed userbase. Like plain old cellphones.

Games like Atomic Dove http://www.atomicdove.com/flash/ or Bots2: Rumble (couldn't find a link). Are already in that direction. Apparently the Bots one is very popular in Europe.

[Vertigo]

N-Gage isn't even out yet, yet it can't even compete with entry-level phones in Japan, on a technical front or from a gaming aspect. I guess Nokia are just hoping noone will notice.

[Jeffrey]

The N-Gage is doomed. Nintendo will come out with something big within the next 12 months to compete with Sony's PSP and the N-Gage will be reduced to FREE phone fodder.

Who gets the last laugh? Sega since Nokia bought their struggling dot-com bomb unit.

An inital price point of $299? Is that some kind of joke? Looking at an ad in one of the latest gaming magazines the "Mobile Phone" feature was listed LAST. Nokia is going after Nintendo with this phone, not casual Snake players. Just look at their marketing.

Game Over.

[outsider]

jpb ppyt psycholog zdrowa ywno nieruchomoci projektowanie stron agencja reklamowa soczewki kontaktowe nauka angielskiego agroturystyka opony klimatyzacja domy opieki akupunktura hydraulik projektowanie wntrz soha jpk paa ki wypadki tfrd jh sw jft pp fdr