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N-Gage

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The Nokia N-Gage is a mobile telephone and a handheld game system in one unit designed using the Nokia 3650 as a base. The unit is priced at $199 - $299 USD (in Europe 200 - 250 €) and the games sell for $30 to $40 (in Europe 30 - 40 €). It was launched on October 7, 2003.

In the early 2000s, gamers were increasingly carrying around both a cell phone and a Game Boy, the most popular handheld game system. Nokia spotted an opportunity to combine these devices into a more handy unit. The company also packed in multiplayer, Internet, and PDA-like features into the system.

Despite the large amount of attention gamers gave the system before it was launched, it has not been as commercially popular as Nokia estimated. Most gamers blame the sales performance on the poor selection of games compared to those available to the handheld-leading Nintendo Game Boy Advance while still costing more than twice as much. In addition to its problems as a game system, it also faces problems as a cell phone. The N-Gage is only carried by one or two mobile phone providers, because current distribution focuses on specialty video game retailers and big-box electronics outlets.

The N-Gage has also been critisized for it's clumsy design: to insert a game, users must remove the phone's plastic cover. And the speaker is in the side of the phone, so the comfortability for longer calls has been criticized.

The follower to N-Gage is planned to be the N-Gage QD, in which are redesigned the device's physical design, which forces users to hold the N-Gage on edge to use it as a cell phone and to remove the battery to swap out game cartridges.

N-Gage games

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