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[Project Midway]

For those two or three people who care,heh, Nokia had some new stuff at E3:

http://press.nokia.com/PR/200505/994712_5.html

Los Angeles, CA - Nokia today unveiled its plans for its evolution of connected mobile gaming, which will make it easy to search for, purchase and play high-quality mobile games using a range of Nokia smartphones. The aim of this next generation of mobile gaming is to expand the N-Gage platform's rich connected multiplayer experience across a wide range of Nokia's multimedia devices.

In 2005, we expect to sell 25 million smartphones and we see the global smartphone market exceeding 250 million devices in 2008. We can continue with our N-Gage offering while helping to drive the adoption of mobile connected gaming at a broader level."

When consumers buy a Nokia smartphone that supports the new Nokia mobile gaming solution, they gain access to their favorite games through their smartphone or their personal computer. Games have been certified to provide a consistent experience, ensuring a quality rich entertainment experience that consumers can count upon. Consumers can manage their mobile game collection via their PC, with an individual locker of purchased games to make it easy and reliable to track purchases or reinstall deleted games.

The first Nokia smartphones to support the new Nokia mobile gaming solution are expected to be in the market during the first half of 2006. Additional information on the title launch portfolio is expected to be available in September 2005. The goal is to have a broad spectrum of games to suit all tastes - from casual 'quick fix' gaming to more in-depth multi-user games.

For developers, this means less effort spent creating dozens of versions of the same game. We will provide a robust development environment with the first set of tools expected to be available in Q4 2005 and a range of APIs native to the smartphone.

"The mobile gaming experience is becoming deeper, more immersive and more exciting. For us, this means that gamers can enjoy their favorite franchise and engage in its community at any time," said John Batter, VP and General Manager of EA Mobile. "Nokia can help us by making great devices that can unlock the potential of a great game."

My guess is that we wont see N-Gage 2, but Nokia Games Solution on many different Nokia smart phones. I would guess they come in different shapes and with different controls to please different kind of gamers/cell phone users.

Here are the concept pics, I think it looks really "neat":

And the tech demo, featuring the robot shown in the concept pic:

http://www.nokia-americaspress.com/uploads/videos.asp?P=VID&ID=22

 

[tedtropy]

Make it cheap, able to sync up with Outlook, and look less like an electric razor and I'm there.

 

[Timen]

looks cool but the buttons confuse me... (two d-pads?)

 

[BlueLegs]

so how do i call someone on this???

 

[dorio]

looks cool but the buttons confuse me... (two d-pads?)

for first person shooters.

 

[Project Midway]

so how do i call someone on this???

Dunno. Maybe from Contacts? or if you need to type a number, select it from the UI number by number? or maybe it has touch screen? or voice recognition? lol.

 

[Dragmire]

That was the lamest demo I have ever seen.

 

[The Main Event]

looks cool but the buttons confuse me... (two d-pads?)

They ripped the Virtual Boy controller concept.

 

[aoi tsuki]

i like the concept design (most useful for those of use who import our contacts), and believe in the idea of Nokia mobile game solution, but that demo was simply hilarious. i just hate it when i'm a robot on top of a building and robotic flying ladybugs try to attack me for some reason. It just ruins my day.

 

[Lazy8s]

Achieving that level of graphics from a device which must have good enough battery life overall to be a mobile phone makes Nokia's hardware better than any company's system at E3 for cost/capability.

The detail in the visuals was clear for such a small screen. It's probably doing 4xAA from MBX based graphics acceleration, making for higher standard anti-aliasing than even the next generation consoles.

 

[Chittagong]

The robot demo is real and running on Nokia's booth for selected partners. Word has it that some had a special serving of crow after betting that it's not realtime when it was unveiled the (alcohol-fueled) night before.

 

[Lazy8s]

It's not at all surprising that it's real-time. The MBX graphics accelerator has been out since 2003 and has capabilities for this and much more. The following agreement which was announced a couple months back probably relates to the new Nokia next-generation N-Gage platform:

Texas Instruments and Imagination Technologies Create Gaming and Graphics Ecosystem Leveraging TI’s OMAP™ 2 “All in One Mobile Entertainment” Platform
TI’s Leading OMAP Processor Technology Coupled with Imagination’s PowerVR® MBX® 3D Graphics Accelerator Offers Developers Breakthrough Performance for Gaming and Graphics
http://www.imgtec.com/News/Release/index.asp?ID=243

 

[Project Midway]

The robot demo is real and running on Nokia's booth for selected partners. Word has it that some had a special serving of crow after betting that it's not realtime when it was unveiled the (alcohol-fueled) night before.

yeah, here's a vid of that demo running on real prototype hardware:

http://www.nokia-americaspress.com/uploads/videos.asp?P=VID&ID=34

Some booth babes too!

 

[Firest0rm]

Dunno. Maybe from Contacts? or if you need to type a number, select it from the UI number by number? or maybe it has touch screen? or voice recognition? lol.

There's another pic, I don't know where it is but one side has those game buttons the other side pulls out the number pad.

 

[Lazy8s]

Nokia is well positioned to become a major player in the games industry. The focal point for personal computing and media/content delivery is shifting from the PC even more to wireless communication platforms like cell phones than to the TV room with set-top boxes. By adopting the next-generation N-Gage as a standard across multiple models of their phones, they'll automatically gain a large installed base with the millions of phones they sell every year.

The new phones will pack the necessary performance for console-level content, and they'll utilize the new generation content delivery and distribution models of downloads over the air and complementary storage and transfer of games and licenses to a PC.