Nokia N-Gage/N-Gage QD

Summary

For a long time Nokia was the market leader with mobile phones, but customers rarely used the phones to play at the time, but also bought mobile game consoles such as the Nintendo Game Boy. With the N-Gage, Nokia introduced a device at the end of 2003 that combines the phone and the game console. The system is basically a Series 60 mobile phone with Symbian OS 6.1. Exclusively for the N-Gage more than 50 games are developed, but since in addition to the usual Symbian software the N-Gage also offers a Java ME implementation, the actual game selection is significantly larger — there is also a web browser. However, this is not enough for widespread use. In the first version of the N-Gage, the battery has to be removed whenever a cartridge is changed, and since there are microphones and speakers at the top of the device, users always have to rotate the N-Gage a bit strangely. Nokia revised the N-Gage and came on the market half a year later with the N-Gage QD.

This version eliminates errors like the concealed cartridge slot, but it is also more trimmed to reduce costs: the MP3 playback has been removed (only limited possible via a pure software solution), there is no mini USB connection anymore and the radio has been deleted. But the new model is also not running very well, because Nokia has no good reputation in the field of mobile gaming since the failure of the first model.

Nokia realized that dedicated devices are not a future and uses the term “N-Gage” hereinafter for a gaming platform that supports a whole range of Nokia devices; the games are (still) on http://www.n-gage.com/ At the end of 2009, the N-Gage platform was officially abolished and the games migrated to the Ovi Store.