Archive for March, 2007

On Monday, Michael Bergen, Forum Nokia Business Development Manager, talked about Nokia’s three offerings for game developers: N-Gage, SNAP Mobile and Forum Nokia.

Michael touched on what makes N-Gage the next generation high-end gaming solution and then looked at how SNAP Mobile complements N-Gage for light, fast, easy, community based game development.

Forum Nokia was the main focus of the talk and Michael showed how the organisation supports its more than 2.5 million members. He touched on some of the latest developments such as the Nokia Content Discoverer, a global application which allows users to easily find, try and buy games.

Finally Michael announced the six winners of the Forum Nokia and SingTel Multiplayer Game Quest. The winners will have the opportunity to be marketed to the over 100 million customers of Singtel Mobile and its regional partners. For more information see http://www.forum.nokia.com and http://www.fnpro-apac.com.

Gregg Sauter, our head of third-party game publishing, said that Nokia would not be announcing an N-Gage 2 at the Game Developer’s Conference this week, and in fact never will. And then he explained why.

Speaking to a strong showing of developers and publishers in a keynote address, he demonstrated how N-Gage is becoming a software platform tied not to a single mobile but a wide spectrum of compatible devices — and why that is so exciting to game developers and game players alike.

Millions and Millions

He shared some eye-opening statistics to drive that point home:

Globally, Nokia has about a one third market share of mobile phones. Each day, 850 million people use Nokia devices.

Of those, the number of so-called “convergence devices” is rapidly increasing.  In 2006, 80 million convergence devices were sold worldwide, half of which were from Nokia. By 2008, that number could grow to 250 million, a hefty percentage of which could be N-Gage compatible.

That is an exciting proposition to anybody interested in mobile gaming: publishers, developers, operators, and of course, you gamers out there. Think about how many people you could be playing with. Think of the volume and diversity of games such a widely-adopted platform could attract.

And while specific devices that will be N-Gage ready at launch were not revealed — after all, some are still in secret development — he did confirm that we are targeting a Fall 2007 rollout.

Summing Up

Sauter also covered the N-Gage application (which you can explore on your own by checking out the “Next Generation” section of this site), and some technical stuff about the SDK for developers. He concluded his presentation by assuring us that, “Nokia has invested a lot in this business and we believe in it.”

The full text and video of Sauter’s presentation will be available on the GDC website soon. When it is, we’ll get you a link so you can see the presentation for yourselves.

Until the next update…

– Ikona out

Good morning N-Gage fans! It’s Monday morning in San Francisco, and the Game Developer’s Conference (the Mobile portion, at least) has just begun.

Let’s get straight to the good stuff — the latest games and publishers to join the N-Gage platform.

First up the games: these new titles have been revealed for the N-Gage:

New Games

• Asphalt 3: Street Rules (Gameloft)
• Brothers In Arms: Hell’s Highway (Gameloft)
• Brain Challenge (Gameloft)
• Midnight Pool (Gameloft)
• World Series of Poker: Texas Hold’em (Glu Mobile)

Asphalt 3 is the third installment in the acclaimed racing series for the N-Gage platform, and we described World Series of Poker last week.

We’ll bring you details on the other new titles as soon as we can.

New Publishers

Three new publishers have also come on board, with THQ Wireless and Indiagames announcing their support for the platform today, and Glu Mobile revealed last Thursday.

While no specific games have yet been revealed for THQ or Indiagames, they join a growing lineup of mobile game publishers that already includes EA Mobile and Gameloft.

Summing Up

So there you go home gamers, more games and more publishers joining the N-Gage platform. Keep your eye on Future Watch this week, as we bring you more updates, pictures and exclusive reports from the show.

– Ikona out

GDC hasn’t even started yet, but Nokia’s already getting good press.

The good news this time is that one of our talks — Scott Foe’s “Designing Next Generation Connected Games” — has been put on the list of “Absolute Best Sessions” by Next Generation.

You guys will remember Scott Foe as the producer of Pocket Kingdom for the N-Gage, one of the world’s first massively multiplayer mobile games. Is he working on another game for the new N-Gage platform? Maybe we’ll get a little taste at this session.

Be sure to check Future Watch all next week, as I’ll be bringing you the latest N-Gage news and reports on the sessions, including this one, and pictures from the show.

Ikona out.

Good news, N-Gage fans! Ikona here with a heads up from our news desk.

Glu Mobile has announced that they will be bringing titles to the N-Gage platform.

Glu is a leading global publisher of mobile games, including original titles such as Ancient Empires, Stranded, and Super K.O. Boxing! They also publish games based on major brands from Atari, Hasbro, Microsoft, and Sony.

The first game Glu will be bringing to the N-Gage platform is World Series of Poker Texas Hold’em. Pretty cool stuff!

Check out the press release for more details.