stevedperkins
08-25-2003, 12:36 PM
Just read an article on Nokia's "N-Gage" portable gamesystem/phone/kitchensink...
http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/misc/platforms/ngage/
<br/>
Let me get this straight... <b>THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS</b> for the following:
- A smaller screen than the GBA
- A ridiculously smaller game library than the GBA
- A form-factor that requires you to pop off a cover and remove the battery every time you want to switch game cartridges
- An absolutely horrible cell phone design that makes you hold the device to your head sideways, as if you were putting one of those big seashells to your head to 'hear the ocean'.
<br/>
Obviously, this doesn't sound very competitive at all. So how is Nokia going to market the units in order to get them off shelves? Here's a glance at the marketing strategy:
"Game Boy is for 10-year-olds," said Nokia's head of entertainment and media, Ilkka Raiskinen. "If you're 20 or 25 years old, it's probably not a good idea to draw a Game Boy out of your pocket on a Friday night in a public space." So, you may infer that the N-Gage is being targeted at a more-mature demographic, an audience that wants to be hip and is concerned with its image.HUH?!? Okay, so pulling out a GBA SP at the bar on a Friday night would be dorky, but pulling out your N-Gage <b><i>WOULDN'T</i></b> be? Obviously, both of these scenerios are pretty dorky... why would anybody in their mid-20's go to a public place for socializing on a Friday night and then pull out a video game? They wouldn't... and even if they did, they would look just as dorky with an N-Gage as they would a GBA. Hell, they would look dorky just <i>placing a cell phone call</i> on an N-Gage... having to hold it to their head sideways and all.
Girls go through the dreaded "awkward stage" in early adolescence. They're no longer "cute" in the flower-girl-at-a-wedding way, but they're not yet "beautiful" in the find-a-boy-who-wants-to-make-out-with-me way either. They're just sort of... <i>there</i>. The same is true for console gamers in their 20's. It's not exactly cool to talk about how much you enjoy video games in front of non-gamers, the image is that it's for kids (even if the XBox is supposed to be geared for older players, it's always teens I see playing it in the commercials). However, they're not exactly old enough to claim nostalgia or "mid-life crisis" symptoms either (advertisements for mobile phone games are always some fat bald 40-year old getting excited over a game of "Wheel of Fortune" in an airport, while everyone around give the "oh to be a kid again" grins). I don't think there really is a way to explicitly market video gaming to 20-somethings. Therefore, if the N-Gage can't suceed on marketing and can't suceed on actual specs and merit (this thing is an all-around joke when put side-by-side with the GBA SP)... I'm going to cast my prediction for it doing about as well as the cellphone-and-PalmPilot combos that flopped <b>hard</b> a couple years ago.
Hey, cellphone industry! I don't know how they do things in Europe and Japan, but in the U.S. it has become obvious by now that we only want to use our cellphones as <b><i>phones</i></b>. We're not looking to use them to surf the web, or play Pac-Man, or take digital pictures. You've been shoving this down our throats for over half a decade now, and we STILL don't care!
http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/misc/platforms/ngage/
<br/>
Let me get this straight... <b>THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS</b> for the following:
- A smaller screen than the GBA
- A ridiculously smaller game library than the GBA
- A form-factor that requires you to pop off a cover and remove the battery every time you want to switch game cartridges
- An absolutely horrible cell phone design that makes you hold the device to your head sideways, as if you were putting one of those big seashells to your head to 'hear the ocean'.
<br/>
Obviously, this doesn't sound very competitive at all. So how is Nokia going to market the units in order to get them off shelves? Here's a glance at the marketing strategy:
"Game Boy is for 10-year-olds," said Nokia's head of entertainment and media, Ilkka Raiskinen. "If you're 20 or 25 years old, it's probably not a good idea to draw a Game Boy out of your pocket on a Friday night in a public space." So, you may infer that the N-Gage is being targeted at a more-mature demographic, an audience that wants to be hip and is concerned with its image.HUH?!? Okay, so pulling out a GBA SP at the bar on a Friday night would be dorky, but pulling out your N-Gage <b><i>WOULDN'T</i></b> be? Obviously, both of these scenerios are pretty dorky... why would anybody in their mid-20's go to a public place for socializing on a Friday night and then pull out a video game? They wouldn't... and even if they did, they would look just as dorky with an N-Gage as they would a GBA. Hell, they would look dorky just <i>placing a cell phone call</i> on an N-Gage... having to hold it to their head sideways and all.
Girls go through the dreaded "awkward stage" in early adolescence. They're no longer "cute" in the flower-girl-at-a-wedding way, but they're not yet "beautiful" in the find-a-boy-who-wants-to-make-out-with-me way either. They're just sort of... <i>there</i>. The same is true for console gamers in their 20's. It's not exactly cool to talk about how much you enjoy video games in front of non-gamers, the image is that it's for kids (even if the XBox is supposed to be geared for older players, it's always teens I see playing it in the commercials). However, they're not exactly old enough to claim nostalgia or "mid-life crisis" symptoms either (advertisements for mobile phone games are always some fat bald 40-year old getting excited over a game of "Wheel of Fortune" in an airport, while everyone around give the "oh to be a kid again" grins). I don't think there really is a way to explicitly market video gaming to 20-somethings. Therefore, if the N-Gage can't suceed on marketing and can't suceed on actual specs and merit (this thing is an all-around joke when put side-by-side with the GBA SP)... I'm going to cast my prediction for it doing about as well as the cellphone-and-PalmPilot combos that flopped <b>hard</b> a couple years ago.
Hey, cellphone industry! I don't know how they do things in Europe and Japan, but in the U.S. it has become obvious by now that we only want to use our cellphones as <b><i>phones</i></b>. We're not looking to use them to surf the web, or play Pac-Man, or take digital pictures. You've been shoving this down our throats for over half a decade now, and we STILL don't care!