In a move that could only be considered incredibly good common sense; Nokia has decided to cancel all plans for the release of the N-Gage 2; not surprising, when you consider how disastrous the original N-Gage was (remember sidetalking?).
Replacing the gaping hole left in the cell phone gaming world by the N-Gage 2’s absence, will be the N-Gage platform. Not another cell phone with piss poor design, mind you, but an actual gaming platform that allows gaming on all N-Gage enabled phones. While this news may not fill anyone with glee, there are some aspects to this new platform that some of you may find interesting, and quite frankly, familiar.
With this new N-Gage service on your phone, you’ll be able to create yourself a gamer profile; one that tracks achievements, high scores, game history, and the points you’ve earned by playing. Not only that, you’ll be able to have the ability to add friends, send invites and messages, play multi-player games against remote opponents, and download media.
Yeah, Nokia is basically making Xbox Live for phones. While this certainly isn’t a bad thing (Xbox Live is a great business model) you really have to ask yourself if it’s going to matter – cell phone games aren’t exactly breaking new boundaries in game play. So, while the addition of a Live like service would be nice, would it matter? Would it be something that could get you to play more games on your cell phone?
