Anyone bothered to get an N-Gage?
 

As I think anyone with a clue expected, the N-Gage appears to have fallen flat on its face. I really have no sympaties for Nokia, it completely seems like they've had no idea what the hell they were doing right from the start.

I glanced at some reviews for the games so far, and they're pretty damn bad. Gamespot gave the Bust-a-Move game a 1.4 out of 10. Seriously, you'd have to try really hard to screw up Bust-A-Move.

And there's already rumors about a price drop, one week after it's been released.

So, anyone actually own one? Personally, I'm looking forward to watching this thing die a slow death. :D

Heheh. Me too. Makes me Harken back to the days of the Jaguar. They spent a buttload of money on advertising. Everytime I turn around I see a Ad for N-Gage. Too bad it was all in Vain though...

Ha! The funniest thing is watching someone trying to talk on one of those things. They look like a total dork.

Those have to be one of the most overpriced pieces of crap on the technology market. Just look at it!

I wonder how much money has be lost on this crappy handheld gaming phone?
And for God's sake why didn't the designers figure out taking the batteries out to put a game in is a bad thing???

Also its sad that all the games are crappy ports of PSone games...

Oh, and I have to post this link

Nokia says N-Gage launch a success
http://www.gamespot.com/all/news/news_6077184.html

It's the stupidist thing in the fucking world. I second watching them die a slow painfull death, dragging the whole nokia name with it.

"According to Gamesindustry.biz, "The first official statement from Nokia on the launch of its N-Gage game deck has claimed that the device is sold out at many retailers following a 'very positive' consumer response." However, 1UP have posted US sales figures which reveal "...less than 5,000 units of Nokia N-Gage hardware were sold in the United States in the system's first week of release"

i think its going to be a big chunk of cellular crap, why not just buy a GBA and a cell phone?

I'd like to meet a Nokia executive that was on the team for this thing and say "Seriously, what the hell were you thinking?"

Personally I'm waiting for the new one from sony. I think it's called the psp or something like that, but it's supposed to have an mp3 player, video player, and some other good stuff. Theres also a pda out there that has a nice large screen on it and plays beautiful 3d games like doom2 and others.

The Jaguar was actually an impressive console, though. It was far more advanced than the SNES or Genesis was.

Heh, this reminds me of Dreamcast. That thing lasted a year or two, maybe. But this N-Gage thing, when I first saw it, it had potential, but now it just looks sad. I will buy one for my enemies, and one for myself so I can put it in the microwave.

This is thing is like that VR game system ninentendo tried to introduce way back when. The one that was only in black and red.

It's also supposed to cook your microwave popcorn, do the dishes and massage your feet after a long day....*scoff

I'll believe it when I see it and right now....I ain't seeing it :)

The Virtual Boy. I own one. It rocks.

I wish the N-Gage the best. If it weren't so expensive I would have one.

I'm definitely going to get a Sony PSP once that's out... Finally a portable game console that uses CD-type media! Hopefully it has some kind of skip-protection though... It would be terrible if it didn't.

Nokia made the N-gage wrong. The made it as a phone that could be used as a game console, they should have done the opposite. Honestly, I think they should have taken the phone option out completely and just left in the bluetooth networking and maybe the online gameplay. And made the screen way bigger and horizontal instead of vertical. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING???

You see cyco, they WERE NOT THINKING. Stupid idiots.

I would HATE to talk on that thing, shit the GameBoy SP looks more like a phone than the N-Gage does. I like how Penny Arcade just constantly laughed at it :).. The day of the launch, Gabe posted a link to the article, what did the hyper link say? And I quote:
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Heh. I bet some heads will get chopped at the Nokia HQ.

I've got two. But for the record, I didn't pay for 'em. They were demo units given to me for evaluation.

I can say with no hesitation that every criticism you've heard is correct. The N-gage has some great features - like the MP3 player and the FM radio. And the phone is very high quality. But as a gaming device it blows. I've never seen a device of any sort with this many design flaws.

I've also got one of the Tapwave Zodiacs in hand (well, actually, it's sitting over to my right at the moment). It's not perfect, but so far I'm very impressed. Great Palm functionality. Great game functionality.

If you read the articles in EGM and a few other gaming mags, you'll see just how big of a piece of shit this really is.

The dreamcast had some awesome games and you shouldn't judge it on sales alone. Trust me, the N-Gage is going to go down but not with glory like the Dreamcast.

I have to agree with ya, the Dreamcast had a lot of potential and had some frigin awesome games associated with it, soul calibur being one, and it was one of the launch titles, dammit.

There is a penny-arcade article where tycho talks to an n-gage rep, and the guy says that the n-gage is different because it is directed toward a more mature audience than the game boy advanced. That guy needs to go back to his public relations classes if he thinks that is a good way to sell something to the audience that most likely owns and enjoys the gameboy.

Here is a good one.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2003/20030822l.gif


Here is another good one!

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2003/20031008l.gif

Wow, this is hilarious. I never knew so many people hated the N-gage. Personally, I never even thought about it cause it never reached my "radar screen". I took one look at it and thought, that looks lame... and hadn't thought about it since.

Now I see on Gamestop that they've started cutting prices in half. Wonder how they're selling...

i have a friend who bought a N-Gage and he can't even send text messages with it, and the game he got with it, "Super Monkey Ball" sucks ass because
1. u cant really see where you are going and
2. ITS A GODDAMN MONKEY IN A BALL! SERIOUSLY!!!

i guess the good points of it are u can play music and videos but it is a horribly mis-shapen blob of plastic that when u talk on it u look like u have a frisbee stuck in your head.

Well if your serious about that Nokia just launched a "Halloween promotion" dropped the price of the N-Gage by $100 at EBgames and Gamestop. :lol:

http://www.gamespot.com/ngage/news/news_6077311.html

FUCK THE NGAGE THAT MOTHER CUCKer.














SORRRY IM DRUNK< BUT I STILKL HATE THE NGAGE

I played one the other day,
I had a lash off Tomb Raider & I gotta say the screen is a joke, Its so fucking small. I have no idea what they were thinking when they decided to make it so small & vertical? WTF?? Its absolute suicide.
Good luck Nokia, youre gonna need it.

BWUAAHAHAHAAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

the n-gage price has been cut as low as $100!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAH

good god. on a movie scale this motherfucker left IMAX to simply come on once on normal tv!

what a blow...... it's been out what one month? from $300 to $100? hahaahaa

thanks nokia. now we know for fact that money neither buys oneself intelligence or good ideas!

i can't quit laughing... heh

PS the dreamcast was never my favorite system but it was still a wonderful machine.

I tried it once..I couldn't even get the damn game to load..wtf

Wtf were they thinking when they made the screen VERTICAL??

Thats the thing yellow gold, they WERNT THINKGINGG!

Tried one in a local game store. Not surprised sales a poor at the minute. May pick up with people getting them on contract.

100 bucks is awfully tempting though, considering I don't have a cellphone... still gotta pay for service though, and I don't really use the phone much.

Edit: heh, nevermind... I thought I saw someone say that it dropped TO $100, not BY $100. 200 dollars is still way way too much for this piece of shit.

"Halloween" promotion? HA!

More like a "Please, buy this, we're begging you!" promotion :)

Anyone considering the N-Gage...Please, buy a Game Boy Advance if you don't have one. You can't go wrong with the GBA.

i currently own a nokia 3300 music phone .. i love to listen to my best mp3s when i have to walk the dog or so, but i doubt that the ngage will be the big deal

never found it appealing... esp having to take off the back to change the cartridge...

stupid as the gameboy sp with no headfone socket

i laughed when I asked the EB guys how many they had sold, 0, and apparently I was the first person to even inquire about it.

I saw a guy today in school with one. First i thought he was listening to a taco but lo and behold it was an Ngage

mmmmm...taco.

its hard to buy an one of these when you see the games that it has :(

tomb radier as a top title release.....common

Hahaha, the N-Gage is just about the biggest joke on the gaming industry. Maybe if they made a deal with Nintendo, and had a "phone" version of the GBA, then that'd be cool. But whoever bought one, it will be like the Dreamcast, just no games. And it won't die with glory. *Looks over to his nice clean DC and goes over to all the games* =)

Dreamcast ownz. period.

Almost bought one but didnt after I tried the one they had on display, it sucked. screen too small to make out what I was doing on Tony Hawk

Eh, gotta disagree:

The failure of the DC was a tragedy.
The failure of the N-Gage is awesome.

:D

[img]http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0QwDHAuEUGM!i0Yr6vgyoUjEOpqX1DjmVXB6z5npVa*4JNHdzo0mVHo8*!Oany98y0h*pCyb0xDbnClZktMqXUcasuzTnsNjnrvfoi3u9PJo/ngage.jpg?dc=4675445197432277523[/img]

uh... wha? is there some joke i'm not getting?

http://www.sidetalkin.com

I won't identify myself precisely, but I will admit to being one of the people on the first page. :)

I was at E3 when the introduced the N-Gage. The booth was empty. They were trying to get peple to play it without success. I gave it a shot just to check it out cause it was the first I heard of it. I put it in my hands for only 30 seconds at the most and walked away.

The Dreamcast had awsome games...I still mourn it's death.. ;_;

N-Gage has some fucking sad adverts, in the pic above the N-Gage ad reads "THIS IS WHERE I BEAT UP THREE KIDS" (instead of "This is where i decided to...") or at least something to that extent, trying to emphasise the mobility of the N-Gage.

Oh my god! That fucking rocks!!!
http://www.sidetalkin.com/images/talkin-37.jpg

The videogame industry is almost as difficult to break into as the automotive industry.
People are fiercely loyal over their brand choices (Ford vs. Chevy, Sony vs. Nintendo), have in house developer/designers (SVT, Bungie), and is a multi-billion dollar industry.
The problem is, companies think that videogaming is a cash cow and don't realize the inherent problems of the industry. They believe if it has a moving picture, and noise, that people will flock to it and hand over their monies. They act as if the customer is an idiot.
Also, like the auto industry, unless you've been around since the 'beginning' of modern gaming (Nintendo, Sega, somewhat Sony), you need to work your ass off to get a good reputation in the industry. Didn't microsoft have to spend half a billion dollars on advertising just to get a foothold in North America? Also, if microsoft hadn't have bought the reputable Bungie development company, they would have fared much worse in their launch.
As much as this thing is going to fail, I can't help but feel sorry for the exec that passed this idea on with an open palmed slap on the ass. There's a lot of money to be lost here, along with some jobs.

Hey is that the N-Gage or a dead horse? *kicks N-Gage in the crotch* Oh wow it's both!

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp.../tech_nokia_dc

*cough*bullshit*cough*

Wakelagger, doesn't Sony (and MS, somewhat) act as a counterexample though? Sony came out of nowhere and kicked everyone's ass. And they did it nobly by creating a great system and playing their cards right with third party developers. Companies think that the video game industry is a cash cow, probably because they look at Sony's profits in awe. They think if Sony (who entered as a dark horse in the running) can do it, why can't we?

And it's not like the video game industry isn't always filled with the same names, as you imply. There was once Sega, and Atari, both of which had strongholds in the inudstry, and are now all but non-existent. And now there's Sony and MS. Companies enter the fray, some perservere, some don't, and no one company has a monopoly.... seems like a fair deal to me.

Also, about comparing it to the auto industry: when was the last time a major automaker decided to leave the industry, like how Sega and Atari have left theirs? I can't think of one...

No but they've left the North American markets. Renault, Fiat, Daihatsu to name a few.
The gaming industry is a cash cow, for the few that are successfull. Many developement companies come and go every year. And even some that are somewhat successfull are a flop away from going in the toilet.

If it was as strict handheld wireless gaming console it could of done very well.....looks very flawed :( somebody needs to slap some sense into some designers....