Mobile games, April 2008

At Nokia, April 2008 has been particularly busy with the announcement of the Nokia Music store service in France as well as the game download portal Nokia N-Gage, two big pieces of their Ovi portal which should open new horizons in terms of revenue, in addition to the sale of mobile devices.

Anounced in August 2007, launched in beta testing phase at the end of the year, and with numerous delays, the Nokia N-Gage service has finally started and unveiled some of the possibilities through the games that were made available at the launch.

You firstly have to know that this download service is restricted to a few of the more powerful Nokia NSeries handsets, which have the technical characteristics necessary to play real 3D games on.

So while Java mobile games are generally 500 to 700 KB, the games on offer here take up to 30 MB. Of course, the way they function is different and the comparison between a Java game and its N-Gage equivalent is surprising: 3D, textured effects, fluidity… there is a real jump in quality between the two versions.

It is also for this reason that the games can be downloaded to the PC and then transferred to a Nokia mobile.

This superior quality in part justifies the higher price of between 10 and 15$ the game, when compared with the 4.5 to 8.5$ of a traditional Java game. This constitutes a certain blockage for the buyer that Nokia hopes to get around by offering a certain number of functions.

 Also, one of the big new features with this portal is the possibility of trying games before buying them. Besides this, a recommendation and score recovery system allow you to create an emulation effect, reinforced by the possibility with certain games of playing in a network against opponents from all over the world, in the N-gage arena, turning the telephone into a sort of games console with N-Gage.

Brothers in Arms, de Gameloft, version N-Gage (à gauche) et Java (à droite)Gameloft’s Brothers in Arms in N-Gage version (left) and Java (Right)

So will this be enough for Nokia to win its mobile gamble? While a number of editors have already answered, the offer is currently only available for up to date Nokia phones, with the catalogue not yet being expansive, although releases have been planned at regular intervals to try and encourage interest in the platform.

We will also have to evaluate the experience offered by the games on the N-Gage. While a user can spend 4.5 or 6$ without too many regrets for a casual game (occasional game, where each turn lasts a few minutes, with simple commands), will they also be ready to pay double the price for games that are of equivalent production to a mobile console?