Nokia Unveils N-Gage QD Gamedeck

Enhanced design and new features for Nokia's portable games machine unveiled in London today. Details and pics inside!

Nokia has this morning unveiled a revised version of its Nokia N-Gage portable games platform. The N-Gage QD aims to address many of the design shortcomings of the original platform, and is certain to strengthen Nokia's position in the games marketplace.

It is widely regarded that Nokia misjudged the difficulty of launching a new platform in the games market, although the firm has been applauded in equal measure for the considerable footing it has gained so far.

It is said that Nokia's strategy to become a serious product from the games industry's perspective would greatly benefit from management and executive staff with gaming backgrounds - to date there have been far too few - and so the company is said to be hiring Nick Alexander, formerly President of Sega Europe during its most successful years in the nineties.

The N-Gage QD mobile game deck, the latest addition to the N-Gage platform. The N-Gage QD is a compact device with a hot-swappable multimedia (MMC) slot for instant gaming, longer battery life, improved gaming controls, brighter screen, powerful smart phone features and the new N-Gage Arena launcher application.

Gamers will be able to play all of their favourite N-Gage titles, connect to the worldwide mobile gaming community over mobile networks via the N-Gage Arena as well as take part in close-range mobile multiplayer gaming via Bluetooth wireless technology.

The planned range of prices is expected to be from €99/$99 with a contract to €199/$199 as an unsubsidised, untaxed retail price. The N-Gage QD game deck is expected to be available in May 2004 for Europe, Africa and Asia Pacific and in June 2004 for the Americas. The N-Gage QD will be available in two versions: a GSM 900/1800 variant (Europe, Africa and Asia Pacific) and a GSM 850/1900 variant (Americas).

"After six months on the market with the N-Gage platform, we wanted to expand our device portfolio based on the feedback we've received," said Nokia's Senior Vice President of Games, Ilkka Raiskinen. "With improved gaming ergonomics, gamers can now start to play games at the push of a button and enjoy the increased responsiveness of the game keys. We also added support for hot-swap MMC and extended the battery life. For phone calls, we reoriented the speaker and microphone to support 'classic talking'."

The new N-Gage Arena launcher makes accessing the N-Gage Arena even easier than before. The launcher is a software application preinstalled on the N-Gage QD device that allows gamers full access to the N-Gage Arena community directly from their game deck.

Once installed, the launcher is accessed from an icon in the game deck's main applications menu, similar to other N-Gage software.

Using the launcher via a GPRS connection, N-Gage Arena members can communicate with one another, download exclusive content, access rankings statistics, participate in events and activities, and more. Existing N-Gage users will be able download the N-Gage Arena launcher in May 2004.

The N-Gage QD game deck also supports advanced smartphone features such as personal information management, XHTML browser, email and the possibility to download and install additional Series 60 applications.

Stay tuned for more on Nokia's ultra determined, ultra confident plight in the games business.

Adam Doree
Director, Kikizo.com