Blog > Archive for the ‘Mobile Culture’ Category

Lots of Reset Generation news today. I just got the heads up that the www.resetgeneration.com website has been upgraded, now offering suppport for Macintosh and CentOS (a version of Linux), in addition to the original Windows platform. Furthermore, both the updated Reset Generation game application on your device now support the Russian language.

And if that’s enough news for one post, we’ve just launched Reset Generation onto Kongregate, the leading indie gaming site one the Web. From the official press release:

“We’re thrilled to bring Nokia’s Reset Generation to an even broader audience of new players on Kongregate,” said Jim Greer, CEO and co-founder of Kongregate. “While millions of N-Gage enthusiasts as well as PC players have responded to the great retro-style gaming experience of Reset Generation, we’ll be introducing the game to millions more.”

Scott Foe, Reset Generation’s creator commented, “We at Nokia are excited to share Reset Generation with Kongregate’s player community. And we’re just plain ecstatic to announce that Reset Generation is now playable on Mac OS — welcome back to the playground of your youth!”

So what are you waiting for? Check it out on Kongregate.com, and the new Reset Generation.com!

Hard to believe, but today marks the one year anniversary of the launch of the N-Gage program, first announced right here on this blog in a simple post called ‘Get Out and Play!‘  The official launch was technically on the following Monday (April 5), but of course we put the application up late one Thursday afternoon, to let you guys get your hands on it first.

Certainly a lot has happened between now and then. We’ve seen games like Creatures of the Deep become a commercial and critical success, we’ve seen the launch of Reset Generation, connecting mobile phones to computers for multiplayer play. Big franchises like Resident Evil and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed have made their mark, too. We’ve seen devices drop off the roadmap, while new ones appeared.

Looking back, I’d have to say we’ve come a long way and accomplished quite a lot. But most of all, its thanks to you in the community, who have stuck with us, played the games, hung around the forums. Without you guys, there could be no N-Gage.

I could go on, but we want to hear from you! What’s been your favorite moment from the last year? Biggest surprise or biggest disappointment?

How’s the service been so far, and where do you see it going in the future?

Don’t forget! The 2008 N-Gage Player Awards are taking place today, in the N-Gage Forums. Head on over at 11:00 AM PST (19:00 GMT/UTC) and enter the special Player Awards Chatroom, where all the nominees, moderators, fans, and prizes will be waiting!

To learn more about the event, including nominees and other categories, visit the special 2008 Player Awards Forum.

Hello all N-Gage Arena members!

It’s the end of the year, which means only one thing (besides the holidays) … it’s time to place your votes for the N-Gage Player Awards for the year 2008. It’s been an amazing year of fun, new application, drama, excitement and great players from around the world, and now it’s time to recognize the best of 2008!!!

VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE PLAYERS TODAY!!!

Now is the time to vote for your favorite players of 2008. Throughout the holidays, the following Voting Form will be up for you to vote for your favorites in various Player Award categories.

CLICK HERE TO LAUNCH THE N-GAGE PLAYER AWARD VOTING FORM

NOMINEE VOTING

During the second week of January 2009, we’ll take your votes and create the Nominees list for each award (top four players with the highest amount of votes in each category). Then, we’ll have you vote again for your favorite nominees.

PLAYER AWARDS NIGHT

The final winners and results will be announced live at the 2008 Player Awards Night on January 30th, 2009, hosted by your favorite moderators.

So who will win? Be sure to find out by marking your calendars for the live Awards Night. See you there!!!

N-Gager Reviews FIFA 09

N-Gage fan site N-Gager.co.uk has taken a good hard look at the new FIFA 09 installment and delivered a verdict:

“The new control system is miles ahead of the previous installation. The game is only really playable in Landscape mode however because too many finger movements makes Portrait mode clumsy. There are plenty of different game modes and a lot of fun to be had with FIFA 09.”

Read the rest here, and of course try the game for yourself.

N-Gage competition round-up

Tzer2 on All About N-Gage has put together a handy post linking to six, yes count ‘em six, separate N-Gage competitions and promotions currently underway, where you can win anything from a football jersey to a Star Wars droid. Take a look here.

Meristation Reviews ONE for N-Gage

You Spanish speakers out there hungering for a tasty review of the fighting game ONE should definitely take a look-see here, and enjoy Meristation’s thorough review of the game.  And you don’t have to speak Spanish to know that a score of 8.5 is muy bueno!

As part of a new marketing initiative, some N-Gage users and mobile device bloggers have been selected to take part in a new campaign. They were invited to New York where they were photographed for the campaign, and then later taken to an event with our public relations people to take a look at playable but not yet released versions of Yamake and ONE.

First let’s take a look at Symbian World’s impressions:

“WOM World Nokia invited me and Scott aka Emo185 to New York City to be part of Nokia’s next N-Gage advertising campaign. The campaign is actually based around the faces people pull when they’re playing N-Gage games.”

Next, well-known N-Gage Arena user Emo185 picks up the story on his blog:

“So The photo shoot was for a New N-Gage FACE Campaign, basically photos and video expressions are used to promote n-gage devices and games, so my face (which got dolled up by make up) may appear on adverts and billboards across the globe, aswell as website stuff, but thats if one of my pictures is chosen, as alot of different people had their photo and video taken.”

Finally we have the Nokia Blog with a third entry on the N-Gage meetup:

“I’m back from the N-Gage meetup from tonight, and while I was disappointed not to see any new devices, I got to play with the pre-release versions of The One and Yamake games for N-Gage. I also met two faces of a new N-Gage campaign that the world may be seeing in a couple of months.”

Congrats to all the bloggers involved, and if you see any more writeups or hear of any more meetups in the rest of the world, be sure to let us and everyone else know.

Here is some interesting commentary about N-Gage compared to Apple’s game offering, by way of an iPod blog. They quote some mobile game publishers, who say:

“In many ways the N-Gage design reflects an insider’s view of how to solve the merchandising challenges that we have all seen in this business for so long,” says Greg Ballard, CEO of game publisher Glu Mobile. “It was like a bunch of us had gotten together and said, ‘Here, this is how it should be done,’” he comments.

This view is echoed by Javier Ferreira, Electronic Arts’ head of mobile publishing for Europe. Despite EA’s heavy presence in the iPhone world, the company is also heavily invested in N-Gage. “All the right pieces are in place from our perspective. We’re very excited about this platform. It is very difficult for this not to be successful,” says Ferreira.

What’s your take on the two services?

Gameloft will bring Prince of Persia Zero and Million Dollar Poker to the N-Gage platform, according to MarketWatch. Official press release here.

Tzer2 over at All About N-Gage evaluates the N-Gage platform in terms of our own Point Pickups. So far, we’ve earned only 215 points out of a possible 1,000. Best get to playing, then!

Fraser MacInnes over at Pocket Gamer was listening to the Reset Generation soundtrack and begins to muse on mobile gaming music in general, with an ear to improvement.

Need a complete list of Pro Series Golf Point Pickups? Skroq and other N-Gage community members are creating a list right here.

How Nokia Support for Zeemote Affects N-Gage Gaming

There could be a new way to play your favorite N-Gage games in the near future. That’s because Nokia has lined up behind a company called Zeemote, promising to pre-install the Zeekey application in future N-Gage compatible devices.

Zeekey is a software application that that allows the company’s Zeemote wireless controller to control S60 devices using a wireless collection. Using the controller, the user can control applications on the device that normally would require button presses. This includes operating the music player, triggering the camera, and even playing games.

From the official press release:

“Nokia will be the first organisation to launch its Zeemote Zeekey™ application. This new application enables the Zeemote JS1 Controller to work with N-Gage games and other S60 applications. The Zeemote Zeekey application will come pre-loaded on featured handsets as special gaming bundles and is also available for download on the Nokia website.”

There’s more details in this Pocket Gamer interview — the Zeekey app is a standalone application separate from the N-Gage application, so as long as you have the Zeekey application installed, you own a Zeemote controller, you should be able to play N-Gage games with it.

Since the application runs outside of the N-Gage environment, interfacing the phone’s hardware, no change is needed to the N-Gage SDK or existing N-Gage games.

“We can claim 100 per cent game compatibility from the start,” Zeemote’s Jim Adams tells the site. “Also, one thing we’re doing is letting users customize the profiles, so if different games or applications call for different types of button mapping, you can pull down an options menu and change that.”

What do you think? Would you be interested in playing your N-Gage games with a remote? I imagine it could be quite interesting if combined with a TV out: a truly portable game console!

Heads up, mobile game developers!

We have decided to extend the Mobile Games Innovation Challenge submission deadline until September 8. The reason for this is to give more time for developers to finish their concepts after the holiday season. The original deadline was today, August 20.

For more visit, http://insider.n.gage.com/innovation.