N-gage game

Moreover, on some devices, certain orientations cover the keypad and prevent numeric input. The set of S60 phones that are N-Gage compatible will grow to add more phonesand, of those, a large number of additional phones will come to market after a game is shipped.

How is the developer to implement the game code? It would require a logic flow that takes into consideration the behavior of each N-Gage phone current and future so that the game can adjust the graphics for the screen mode and input keys accordingly.

As you expand the number of devices the decision tree for handling all this logic becomes untenable in a single SKU. When using the N-Gage SDK, a developer does not have to manage all this logic, since it is handled for them at a platform level. The SDK provides the developer with a handful of methods to detect what orientations a phone supports, what the current orientation is, and how to set a new orientation.

The underlying alignment of display and keys is handled in the background by the platform. Avoiding the code required to handle even a single issue like this saves a developer a significant amount of implementation time, as well as testing effort. To guarantee to the N-Gage game development community that their games will port seamlessly between N-Gage compatible phones requires a lengthy internal process within Nokia to ensure that the N-Gage SDK behaves the same on each phone.

The Nokia N-Gage is a mobile telephone and handheld game system based on the Nokia Series 60 platform. It was launched on October 7 , In the early s, gamers were increasingly carrying around both a mobile phone and a Game Boy , the most popular handheld game system. Nokia spotted an opportunity to combine these devices into a more handy unit. They developed and created the N-Gage, a device that included both. Instead of using cables, multiplayer was done with Bluetooth or the Internet via the N-Gage Arena service.

The N-Gage has not been as commercially popular as Nokia estimated. The poor sales performance can be attributed to the poor selection of games compared to its competitors and its cost at launch; it was more than twice as expensive as a Game Boy Advance SP on release day.

Poor sales were also amplified by game media being standard MMC memory cards without any hardware mechanisms to prevent piracy, indeed rival firms boasted that the N-Gage's games could be played just as easily on their phones. The original N-Gage was heavily criticized for its clumsy design: to insert a game, users must remove the phone's plastic cover and remove the battery compartment as the game slot was behind it.

Also, the speaker was on the side edge of the phone, resulting in many gamers mocking it as talking into a " taco phone" or "sidetalking. The sidetalking is there for a practical reason: if placed elsewhere, the screen would get in contact with the cheek and become smudged. However, almost all other cell phones have the screen against the cheek when the user is talking.

Despite the practicality which was not apparent , gamers still were unwilling to talk in such an awkward manner. In the gaming realm, the N-Gage was also criticized for its vertical screen and the poor selection of games. In addition to its problems as a game system, it also faced problems as a cell phone.

Besides the clumsy form factor, it was initially sold primarily through specialty game outlets instead of through cell phone providers, which only called attention to its high pre- subsidy price, lack of games, and clumsy interface compared to other gaming devices thanks to the Series 60 interface and unusual face button layout.

Once cellphone retail outlets started carrying the phone, which wouldn't become a widespread practice until well after the release of the N-Gage QD , it still faced problems. The N-Gage and its successor, the N-Gage QD, worked only on GSM networks, meaning that it was and still is incompatible with the then-largest US cell service provider, Verizon Wireless , as well as all of Japan's cell networks which did much to cut off any significant Japanese developer support.

The original N-Gage though still has many benefits to developers and end-users. It currently has the largest amount of executable RAM memory of any Series 60 device; it has MP3 decoding in a dedicated hardware chip all other Series 60 devices, including the N-Gage QD, rely on software decoding ; it has stereo output from a standard 2.

It revises the device's physical design, being smaller and rounder, with a more convenient cartridge slot on the bottom of the device and the speaker and microphone on the flat side of the device so that calls may be made like a traditional phone. We'll have to wait and see. However, Ollila's new remit includes looking at what can be done gaming-wise with the new N handset and its Maemo operating system.

Nokia is actually showing off a spectacular-looking technical demo of its Bounce game for the device, making use of its OpenGL ES 2.

If N-Gage is soon to be sent to the knackers yard, we'll be keen to see how the kind of rich 3D games that it was capable of resurface on high-end phones like the N News Will N-Gage game Yamake be delayed?