E-Mail From the Mountain Top
This morning in my inbox there was an e-mail from Jaakko Kaidesoja, the head of Nokia’s Play New Experience, which means he’s the guy in charge of everything from N-Gage to SNAP Mobile. In other words, my boss.
Entitled “Season’s Greetings,” the e-mail gave us an overview of the past twelve months — the mountain we’ve climbed — as well as the peaks still to be scaled. While not downplaying the challenges ahead, Kaidesoja said we were high enough up the mountain to see the rest of the road ahead.
Travel metaphors aside, I won’t paraphrase from the e-mail, since it is an internal communication and I do like this job as a virtual mountain-climber, but fortunately he’s also been talking publicly about similar things. What follows are a few of the juicier callouts from an interview published just yesterday in British tech journal the Inquirer.
With the success of games like World of Warcraft, it’s not surprising that the Inquirer was asking if there’s room for those kind of games on mobile (hey, don’t they remember Pocket Kingdom?).
Yes there is Kaidesoja said, but for MMO games to succeed in the mobile marketplace, a couple things need to happen. “Data fees need to be understandable and connections need to be faster and more robust,” he said. He did note that faster networks based on WDCMA, Wi-Fi, and other standards are rolling out, while more operators are moving towards a flat fee model.
As that day dawns, the infrastructure in the form of the N-Gage Arena, exists to support them. “Whether this will lead into MMOs and how — we will see soon,” he said. “but there is definitely an emerging trend of wave that we call Mobile Gaming 2.0.” He compares to the new, empowered Web 2.0 and social media like blogs.
Kaidesoja also emphasized what we’ve been saying since E3: that N-Gage is no longer a single, dedicated gaming device, but “is evolving into a mobile gaming platform which will be supported through various devices consisting of Nokia Nseries multimedia computers and other Nokia S60 devices,” he said. “We are targeting to support some 5-7 devices at launch and scaling up as we move along.”
Those were just a few of the highlights, be sure to read the whole interview.
And as always, feel free to leave a comment!
December 21st, 2006 at 9:14 pm
What about other phones that happen to run S60? This “open” platform is quite closed when I think about it. Now I love Nokia phones no doubt about it, but I’m telling you as a consumer and gamer that this isn’t going to fly.
December 24th, 2006 at 7:45 am
About a year ago I got into my head to write a City of Heroes version for the N-Gage. I didn’t do a lot with that notion, though I did some interface and code design, some studying of 3D code and development of low end ARM routines, studying the development environment, a mockup image, and a “CoH Mobile” icon on my N-Gage that does nothing. I eventually decided it’s be too difficult to do.
I still think it’s the only MMO I know that could be converted to a mobile phone effectively without cutting functionality (discounting some 2D MMOs, which might also be viable). The original N-Gage might have been a little weak for that, but the new platform might be good enough, except for the form factor (separating navigation from the number pad is a must, something which the N-Gage did well and no other phone does).
I’m looking forward to the day where phone players could join PC gamers in the same game world, with no need for different servers or a cut down game. I believe it’s possible with CoH, and that it’d be more effective on an N-Gage style device than on a PSP or DS (due to the number of buttons available on a phone).
For me as a CoH player that’d have been a great gift. The ability to play when away from the PC is something that MMO players will appreciate greatly.
December 24th, 2006 at 8:29 am
Great post Ikona
So good points Stephan but I don’t think the Next Generation N-Gage is being positioned as an open platform? From what I understand it is going to be rolled out across our higher end line of devices, primarily Nseries devices.
You might want to take a look at SNAP Mobile which is a Nokia developed platform for connected mobile java gaming and is (from what I understand) a more open platform that works on all MIDP 2.0 compliant J2ME Handsets.
December 28th, 2006 at 12:57 pm
I’d much rather Jaakko get in touch with me through e-mail or let me interview him. I’m fine with either and not hard to find. Just say the word.
March 13th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
I am having trouble with the link to the rest of the story? anyone else? Very interested based on what we’ve got here to read about the rest =/
March 21st, 2007 at 5:55 am
Excellent article. Was very useful for my final paper. Thanks a ton