Archive for June, 2007

We know there hasn’t been a lot of public-facing N-Gage news lately — and for that you have my deepest sympathy — but behind the scenes things are really picking up here, and that’s starting to show up in the increased pace of industry conferences and other events.

For example, there were such recent items as the Leipzig announcement, the Develop Conference, and the secret publisher talks held in Asia.

In today’s tidbit, it’s been revealed that Nokia will sponsor an event called the Mobile Games Insider. The conference will be held in Santa Monica, CA on July 10, right before this year’s E3 show. (Yes, the old E3 as we know it is dead, but there is still an annual conclave of suits and ties).

The event is sponsored by Digital Media Wire, and among the confirmed speakers are our own Dr. Mark Ollila.

For more info: http://www.mobilegamesinsider.com.

Two quick updates for you today. First, it looks like Nokia is going to be a sponsor for the 2007 Leipzig Game Developers Conference. Here’s the gist of the press release:

The GC Developers Conference (GCDC) today announced that Nokia, the world leader in mobile communications, has pledged its support for the conference and, along with Intel, now holds a main sponsor spot. Presenting its new N-Gage platform, Nokia will contribute to this year’s exciting GCDC programme, Europe’s most important platform for developers, from August 20-22, 2007.

As a platinum sponsor of GCDC, Nokia will be giving a keynote speech at the mobile conference alongside several sponsored speaker sessions. Nokia is also sponsoring the GCDC Night where they will be showcasing their new line-up of N-Gage games, and running competitions where lucky winners will receive Nokia N95s.

Now be careful with this next bit of news, it’s a secret!

Pocket Gamer is reporting that Nokia is holding secret N-Gage workshops for mobile game developers in Japan and China, similar to the ones that were allegedly held in Santa Monica last January.

We of course can neither confirm nor deny this report… Hey, I always wanted to say that!

If you haven’t already done so, be sure to check out the June issue of Mobile Entertainment, which sports an interview with Simon Etchells and Martin O’Driscoll, two members of the N-Gage launch team.

In this interview, our guys answer questions about handsets, operators, and first-party publishing. A snippet:

Mobile Entertainment: What’s the thinking behind the relaunch of the N-Gage concept?
Etchells: The original idea was lauded, but the uptake wasn’t what we wanted because it was tethered to one device. Nokia doesn’t get everything right, but we do try new things — and learn when things don’t go to plan.

The same article also has a sidebar interview with Indiagames CEO Vishal Gondal. Indiagames, you may recall, was revealed as a partner for the next generation of N-Gage back at the Game Developer’s Conference.

Mobile Entertainment is a print publication, but you can also download the digital edition directly from their website (registration required).

Not N-Gage related, but congratulations to Gameloft for winning this year’s Mobile Entertainment Award, or ‘Meffy’, for its Miami Nights: Singles in the City game. The awards, co-sponsored by Nokia among other game publishers and developers, were handed out in Monte Carlo.

Miami Nights: Singles in the City is an interactive story game, focused on the fast lives and good times of swinging singles in the Miami sun.

Spotted on Mobileindustry.biz.

Ikona adds: Not sure how fond I am of the name ‘Meffy’ for an industry award for best mobile game. Anybody got any better ideas?

Just a quick note:

We’ll be in Brighton, UK this July 24-26, as a sponsor for the Develop Mobile track of the Develop Conference & Expo, for European game publishers and designers.

Among the keynote speakers this year are Chris Satchell of Microsoft and Richard Garriott of NCsoft.

If you’re in the US, be sure to pick up the July issue of PC Gamer for an article about the next generation of N-Gage.

In this article, the magazine speaks to Gregg Sauter, Nokia’s director of publishing for Multimedia, about our future efforts. Here’s a snippet from the interview:

PC Gamer: Is changing from cartridge-based games to downloadable games going to limit the size and graphics of N-Gage games?

Gregg Sauter: Well, that’s really up to the publishers. This is a digital platform, so they can distribute games [averaging 16 to 32 MB] any way you can distribute digital files — you can download via the Internet, or you can get them via memory cards, too, like an MMC card.

More and more cell phone users are becoming very comfortable with downloading music and whatnot to their devices, so as far as the really serious gamers out there go, it’s going to be really prevalent for people.

For more, check out the July issue of PC Gamer (US), the one with the Penny Arcade characters on the cover.