08 Nowember 2008

Nokia's Innovation Guru Talks About
Innovations And The Future Of Mobile Games

Dr. Mark Ollila, Nokia’s Director of Technology & Strategy

Dr. Mark Ollila, Director of Technology & Strategy and Nokia Games Publishing, Services and Software, talks for the N-Gage Insider about the innovations that Nokia expects to see in the mobile games industry in the near future and endless possibilities of mobile technologies.

What are your views on the success of the full N-Gage launch so far?

So far, the service has been bought by people in over 100 different countries. When you put that into perspective, it makes me feel proud that so many people want to experience the new N-Gage offering.

At the same time, we’re very pragmatic about the results so far and going forward we recognize that we have to continue to work hard on evolving our service based on our consumers needs.

Where’s the mobile industry moving in general with games innovation?

I think the industry is yet to capitalize on the potential of what the mobile phone can provide. For example, the Nokia N95 has a high resolution screen, GPS, Wi-Fi connectivity, Bluetooth and motion sensors, such as accelerometers. The possibilities with using mobile technologies are endless.

One technology that I think we’ll see more of is haptics. Vibration is something that our games should be using because it is such a powerful way of sending information to the player. It’s all about the actual gameplay and encouraging players to get the maximum out of their mobile gaming experience.

Another simple innovation you could have is blowing into a microphone. This would simulate blowing dust off a table, so you get a sensation of participating in the activity of the game.

In one of our upcoming titles, Dirk Dagger and the Fallen Idol, the camera is used as a controller. It’s even more interesting to think of what could be done in the future. Will we be using the camera to do things like augmented reality where you take real videos and re-augment that video feed with virtual objects? With augmented mobile reality, we’ve looked at how if we put markers in the real world, your phone in camera mode recognizes them.

I want to emphasize that location is something we need to make people more aware of. Location-based services on mobile phones are becoming more and more common. That means we’ll have real location-based information that could be used for a new set of games.

Where do you think the industry is? Is Nokia ahead of the game compared to other competitors? Where do you think the industry is with things such as augmented reality, the cameras and the mics, and the different sensors and touch technology?

I think that Nokia is proving its commitment to services and software. Our commitment to games is something that is very important to the industry but also very important to Nokia. Our heritage is in connecting people. With N-Gage we’re connecting people through play. What the industry itself has to demonstrate is the value that exists in mobile gaming. Through solutions like N-Gage, we can allow the industry to capitalize on the value and the effort they’ve put into creating games.

Where is Nokia with regards to cross platform gaming?

From a publishing perspective we have two projects we’re releasing in 2008 that are cross platform. One of them is Reset Generation and the other Yamake. Yamake is about user generated content, creating your own games and sharing them with people. Reset Generation is an exciting title, targeting people who grew up with video games. We’re definitely continuing to look more and more at how we do cross platform titles, we’ve got these two that we’ve made public and we’ll have more.

What is the role of the Nokia Research Center?

They focus on technology and look at ideas that are coming five years or more in the future

We did a research project on usability and playability testing which explained and put together the processes and the learnings of how we should test our games. This is helping us to find out if a game is good for mobile, or how we can change what we’ve done, based on observing how people are playing our games.

Is all the research the center produces internal or do we have access to the results?

The research center has co-operations with universities and the majority of the work is published for anyone to access. We realize that the best ideas don’t just come from within our company; they can also be derived from a catalyst from input from outside partners’ ideas. The only way to succeed and grow as an industry and as an ecosystem is to share the results. We have a very public research site for the Nokia Research Center: http://research.nokia.com.

We have a lot of information which is released to the public on http://opensource.nokia.com, and http://betalabs.nokia.com. We realize as we share, people will share with us and we can grow together. We want to work in a very collaborative manner. We recently announced a competition called the Mobile Games Innovation Challenge http://insider.n-gage.com/innovation to challenge the industry, asking people to produce something which is truly innovative in mobile gaming. The winner will receive prize money and negotiate with us for a publishing contract.

Can you name for us any 1st or 3rd party games that you’re particularly excited about?

Of the first party titles, I’ve been playing Mile High Pinball lately and I’ve been enjoying that a lot. I’m excited about ONE and Dirk Dagger and I’m obviously excited about Reset Generation and getting into that multiplayer play off frenzy. Of the third party titles, I’m enjoying Asphalt, and looking forward to seeing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

From a news perspective, can you shed any light on any of the key milestones coming up, or N-Gage news to hit in the next year?

One of the key things for us is that N-Gage is embedded on as many compatible devices as possible on the day they hit the market. But the games need to be top class too! ONE and Dirk Dagger and the Fallen Idol won Best 3D Award and Best Gameplay Award at the IMG Awards. Hooked on: Creatures of the Deep also won the Games Award at this year’s MEFFYs.