03 December 2008

Jaakko Kaidesoja About
N-Gage Games On Touch Devices!

I've already informed you that Nokia is apparently working on touch screen support for N-Gage, and has plans to roll out optimized version of the N-Gage client application altogether with just released Nokia N97 which is going to be the first touch device supported by the N-Gage platform.

This is extremely good news for all of you who can afford it of course but how about those who are looking for the 5800 as the cheaper and more affordable solution!?

With the price tag of only 270 Euros (plus taxes) Nokia 5800 phone is designed to appeal to budget-conscious buyers and has potential for best-seller status, especially now when we are facing the one of the worst financial crisis in decades!?

They did mistake by limiting the first edition to only one device and I can't believe that they are repainting the same mistake again!?

Nokia 5800 is capable to process all of existing N-Gage games and there is no reason to exclude it from the platform. In a matter of fact they should expand N-Gage support to all S60 3rd edition device without any limitation.

Anyway, in the quite an interesting interview Jaako Kaidesoja, vice president of N-Gage, has confirmed Nokia N97 as the next big N-Gage device. Widescreen games is the first thing, with current and future games getting the full widescreen treatment.

Gaming on the touchscreen devices opens numerous questions and I have already write about few time and instead of repeating my self I'm going to make a little copy paste from my last article which is available right here if you are interesting in?

The touchscreen phone can be a really fun gaming device, it is great for a lot of games but unfortunately when you touch it doesn't touch you back and therefore it is generally not well-suited to serious game play, nothing can fully replicate the feel and feedback of the hardware keys in terms of productivity and the gameplay!

Touchscreen is great for various board, card, chess and similar slow motion games, it’ even OK for point and click adventure and RPG games, for motion based labyrinths but hardcore gamers and fans of fighting, shooting, racing and other key smashing genres will be disappointed!

The lack of any other hardware buttons is a big barricade to gaming and I am pretty sure that serious gamers will not be happy with on screen and motion based controls.

OK, maybe I’m wrong, maybe I'm just old-school and lack of dedicated hardware buttons maybe even isn’t a fatal issue, but it certainly creates a challenge for both developers and gamers because both are forced to use the accelerometer and touchscreen rather than a traditional hardware controls. Some kind of external Bluetooth controller like Zeemote can be pretty handy solution but it is totally different story!