Not very N-Gaging

Last week Nokia went hiking in the mountains. It started with a gentle slope up towards what looked like a small wood up on the hill. Thinking it looked like a nice place to camp for the night, it headed up there, and set up camp.
Looking for water, Nokia went into the woods to search for a river. Ghostly voices whistled through the trees, and mysterious rustlings could be heard. The voices were all jeering and mocking, calling Nokia stupid and ignorant. Unfazed, Nokia found the river and went back to camp, and slept the night.
The next morning Nokia continued on the hike, and went along a mountain road. It wound through the mountains, going up and down hills, until the trail suddenly ended.
In front of Nokia lay a sheer rock face several miles high. There were no footholds to stand on, no handholds to grab, absolutely no way of getting up this huge cliff.
"If there isn't a way up, I'll make one," said Nokia, who proceeded to climb….

Yes, you guessed it; my little story is a metaphor. Last week Nokia launched its own foray into the world of portable gaming, with a little gadget called the N-Gage.
A dog barked. A couple of leaves rustled. Most people who heard anything just said, "Oh, for Christ's sake, go back to sleep…"

So, where did Nokia go wrong?

The concept behind the N-Gage is one which sounds, well, sound. A portable gaming device with full 3D graphics, and which also doubles up as an MP3 player, a mobile phone, and an MP3 recorder. Surely everything the modern "casual mature gamer" wants?
Nokia certainly thought so. They went on an advertising campaign across Europe. They went on gaming shows to show off the new hardware. They made adverts on TV and bus stops. "Surely," Nokia thought, "everyone now knows about the N-Gage? Who can resist the urge to buy one?"
Everyone, it seems. The console was launched to little or no fanfare. Nokia, ever the optimistic one, proudly stated that the N-gage, "had sold 400,000 units in its first two weeks alone." The public may have looked at it with mild interest in its apparent success, but the rest of us, who had been carefully monitoring the N-Gage's progress, were unimpressed.
For, you see, these were the figures of how many N-Gage's were sold to retailers, not Joe Public. According to an independent study, the N-Gage in matter of fact had only sold 1000 units in the US, and 800 in the UK. The GBA was still outselling it by a ratio of 30:1. Ouch.
These figures get all the more laughable when you realise that Nokia are hoping to sell between 6-9 million units by the end of 2004. The GBA, on the other hand, is expected to sell 20 million by the end of this year.

So, where did the mobile phone giant go wrong? In my view, there are 2 key areas.
The first is the consoles design. This handheld is going to be used in technology design lessons around the world as a lesson how not to make a games console. It truly is amazing how bad the design is.
Its primary function, as a gaming console, is a pain. To insert a game, you must take off the back panel, take out the battery, put in the game (which are on tiny flash cards, by the way), replace the battery and back panel, turn on the console, scroll through the menus, select the game, and then wait 2 minutes for it to load. That's enough time to finish the first couple of missions on Advance Wars.
This method of inserting games is all the more idiotic when you consider what they used as storing the games. The GBA uses tiny cartridges, and when we first saw those there were many a worrier thinking they may lose it all too easily. Compare those to the N-Gage games, however, and it's a behemoth. These things are so small they snap under any pressure, meaning no keeping loose in the pocket, and also the fact that they are VERY easy to lose.
Imagine trying to play an N-Gage on public transport, and you'll see what these problems entail. Too fiddly by far.
Having said that, the D-pad is very nice, and the button layout isn't as confusing as I'd imagined. This is a phone, remember, and as a result there are 9 buttons on one side to get your head around.
The graphics are also very good, breathtaking compared to the GBA. However, the fact that the only games available at launch wee all ports of very old PS1 games meant that the novelty was short lived. Especially as I couldn't play for longer than 20 minutes due to the screen hurting my eyes. What gave them the idea for a tall thin screen? I don't know, but I'd like some of whatever they were smoking at the time.
The secondary function, as a phone, doesn't work very well. The places where you speak and listen on the N-Gage are where the shoulder buttons on the GBA are. The result is it looks like you've got a fish held up against your head, and everyone thinks you're some kind of psycho loony. Not the cool image Nokia were trying to create. I think they expected everyone to carry a pair of headphones around to listen to Mp3's with, but that's a big expectation.
The other minor functions also have some problems. There is a USB drive for connecting it to a computer for transferring MP3's, but they forgot about giving you drivers for it, so unless you have Bluetooth (and that's a very small amount of people) then you won't be able to use the MP3 player at all, and without a need to remember headphones meaning you'll be stuck with holding the trout to your head.
The one saving grace of the N-Gage is the Bluetooth technology it has built in for multiplayer. On the GBA you have to plan for multiplayer bouts, because of all the fiddling around with wires, and you can't just randomly challenge someone in the street - the cables are most likely back home, instead of bulking up your pocket.
With the N-Gage this problem is strewn away with the option for up to 8 people playing each other wirelessly over Bluetooth from up to 10 metres away. The result is a lot more time playing other people on multiplayer, and a lot of fun.
However, with a GBA wireless adapter on the horizon, this one bonus of the N-Gage will be rendered useless.

So, the N-Gage is badly designed. What's the other problem I hear you cry? Well, quite simply, the market that Nokia are aiming for.
The avid gamer, who wants a handheld which can be used easily and a long time for maximum fun will be put off by the price. Gamers are notoriously strapped for cash for most of the time. The fiddly hardware and the poorly designed screen, and most of all the huge price tag of £230 on the N-Gage has, at a stroke, wiped that section of the market away.
So what, Nokia say, we weren't aiming at them anyway. We wanted casual gamers; those that only wanted to play games for a laugh, after the pub, or just want something to pass the time while they're on the bus.
Oh dear Nokia, have you conducted ANY market research? Those people want simplicity and instant action, not 5 minutes of messing around with lots of pieces of plastic and trying not to lose them. And they definitely won't spend £230 on something which they don't actually want. These people have hones already, you gave them to them, remember? They couldn't give a monkeys about the N-Gage.
The advertising hasn't helped either. There are more people who know about the N-Gage in the much smaller avid gamer part of the market than there are in the MUCH larger casual gamer part of the market. Nobody will buy what he or she doesn't know about.

All this results in a console which is not only depressingly bad, but also hasn't a snowball's chance in hell of surviving. Too bad, because Nokia were onto a good thing. The only way the N-Gage will survive is to continually poor money into it, MS style, until it finally starts to earn a profit.
The way I see it though, that'll be long way off, if ever. The only way Nokia can survive is to redesign the whole thing as the N-Gage MkII, but if they were stupid enough to design the N-Gage so badly in the first place, then I don't suppose that that thought will even enter their heads…

Written by: Ian Steadman
Date: 15th October 2003
Email:Catch_the_pidgeon@lycos.co.uk