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6th November 2002:
Nokia to release new handheld
In a bid to combine the games and mobile phone industries, Nokia today announced a their new portable games console, the N-Gage.
Posted by Marc Hull - - UK and Europe

Although the mobile phone market has boomed over the last few years, recently there have been some indications that the market growth is slowing, so many of the large phone companies are trying to rejuvinate interest by moving the industry in new directions. One of the companies at the forefront of this is Nokia, who have previously been rumoured to have been researching interest in the home console market with an Indrema-like open source system. Today they edged even closer to the videogames industry with the announcement of N-Gage, a phone-console hybrid which is intended to take on Nintendo's Game Boy Advance.

Although specifications for the new console are scarce, we do know that it will function both as a phone and a cartridge-based handheld console, and will feature a colour screen. Multiplayer gaming, both near-distance using Bluetooth (radio wave) technology and wide-area over cellular networks has also been mentioned but not confirmed. Nokia hopes that the phone will become the gaming standard for mobiles, reducing the huge variety of screen-sizes and operating systems that currently obstruct mobile game developers. Accompanying first-party developed titles, the console will also be receiving support from Sega, who set up their own mobile games company last year and have previously created pocket versions of big games like Super Monkey Ball and Sega Soccer Slam.

The N-Gage will first appear in stores during February next year, although we currently don't know about launch titles or the expected price point. Check back on Silicon Fusion soon for further details!

Marc Hull

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