What could the N-gage have done to succeed in the market?

[Flojomojo]

You can't play those kinds of equivalence games. There's a huge difference in what constitutes a smartphone today and the way you're using the term. Today we'd call the Blackberry Bold a "feature phone".

 

Yup. To elaborate: I had a BlackBerry Bold (and many of its predecessors) for work starting around 2000. It had a primitive web browser (best for WAP text links), and a very limited app store. It was more like Symbian, which was indeed the prevalent mobile OS at the time -- which really isn't saying much. None of these devices were mainstream in the least, and it's revisionist history to pretend like they were.

 

iOS and Android changed that, but it wasn't for many years later. You get a network effect (gets better the more people using it) with mobile devices when cameras and GPS hit the scene, along with mobile browsers and apps that were more compelling than T9 on a keypad. OP doesn't seem to understand just how crude and limited the N*Gage was, much like the "if only Atari had put everything on the failing 5200" thread.

 

If we're going to talk about N*gage competing with anything, compare it to Palm Pilot, Pocket PC, Tapwave Zodiac, Handspring Visor, and probably other things I've forgotten. Lifetime sales of all of that combined wouldn't add up to a single month of GameBoy Advance revenue.

[derFunkenstein]

The Palm is a great example of how modern-day mobile operating systems have really pushed the envelope. Back from 2002-2006 I supported (among other things) a Palm app that school administrators could use to sync student data to their PDA so they could have access to phone numbers and email addresses. It was so difficult to set up and get syncing, because the app wouldn't just run on all available Palm devices. We had to build separate packages for each line of Palm models. The Treos had one package, the Zires had another, the III, the V, and so on. Every time a new model came out, we had to update the package to support that model directly.

 

Could you imagine having to do that on Android? Oh, another carrier got a variant of the Galaxy S9, time to re-build our app and redistribute the installer. That app got sacked because it was too difficult for a single developer to maintain and a single support rep (me) to deal with. It's not that you couldn't build apps for those devices, it's that it was costly and time consuming, so nobody wanted to. Then it became a mobile web app with a live connection, and it was easier to maintain, so the web was a win in so many ways. Now it's a native app again, but the effort is much lower. Nowadays I target Android and iOS in a single Xamarin Forms project and build for both platforms in just a few minutes.

Edited September 10, 2018 by derFunkenstein

[Atari Pogostick]

You can't play those kinds of equivalence games. There's a huge difference in what constitutes a smartphone today and the way you're using the term. Today we'd call the Blackberry Bold a "feature phone".

That's nice but we are talking about a thread focusing on the shelf-life of this device when it was active. Which in 2003, BB and Windows phones were "smart phones", but notice I didn't say that the Nokia was considered a smartphone, I even said it wasn't. Just confused as to why it wasn't considered one back then.

 

 

 

Yup. To elaborate: I had a BlackBerry Bold (and many of its predecessors) for work starting around 2000. It had a primitive web browser (best for WAP text links), and a very limited app store. It was more like Symbian, which was indeed the prevalent mobile OS at the time -- which really isn't saying much. None of these devices were mainstream in the least, and it's revisionist history to pretend like they were.

 

iOS and Android changed that, but it wasn't for many years later. You get a network effect (gets better the more people using it) with mobile devices when cameras and GPS hit the scene, along with mobile browsers and apps that were more compelling than T9 on a keypad. OP doesn't seem to understand just how crude and limited the N*Gage was, much like the "if only Atari had put everything on the failing 5200" thread.

 

If we're going to talk about N*gage competing with anything, compare it to Palm Pilot, Pocket PC, Tapwave Zodiac, Handspring Visor, and probably other things I've forgotten. Lifetime sales of all of that combined wouldn't add up to a single month of GameBoy Advance revenue.

 

The thread is about the N-gage succeeding in the market not about whether it was going to outsell the gameboy advance or if it sold Iphone levels for a phone.

 

 

Yup. To elaborate: I had a BlackBerry Bold (and many of its predecessors) for work starting around 2000. It had a primitive web browser (best for WAP text links), and a very limited app store. It was more like Symbian, which was indeed the prevalent mobile OS at the time -- which really isn't saying much. None of these devices were mainstream in the least, and it's revisionist history to pretend like they were.

 

iOS and Android changed that, but it wasn't for many years later. You get a network effect (gets better the more people using it) with mobile devices when cameras and GPS hit the scene, along with mobile browsers and apps that were more compelling than T9 on a keypad. OP doesn't seem to understand just how crude and limited the N*Gage was, much like the "if only Atari had put everything on the failing 5200" thread.

 

If we're going to talk about N*gage competing with anything, compare it to Palm Pilot, Pocket PC, Tapwave Zodiac, Handspring Visor, and probably other things I've forgotten. Lifetime sales of all of that combined wouldn't add up to a single month of GameBoy Advance revenue.

 

The thread is about the N-gage succeeding in the market not about whether it was going to outsell the gameboy advance or if it sold Iphone levels for a phone.

 

[Flojomojo]

That's nice but we are talking about a thread focusing on the shelf-life of this device when it was active. Which in 2003, BB and Windows phones were "smart phones", but notice I didn't say that the Nokia was considered a smartphone, I even said it wasn't. Just confused as to why it wasn't considered one back then.

 

 

The thread is about the N-gage succeeding in the market not about whether it was going to outsell the gameboy advance or if it sold Iphone levels for a phone.

 

 

The thread is about the N-gage succeeding in the market not about whether it was going to outsell the gameboy advance or if it sold Iphone levels for a phone.

 

It's like Game of Thrones -- if you don't win, you die.

 

N*gage never came close to winning. It died.

 

Ever wonder why there aren't any other boutique, upstart players in the smartphone scene lately?

[derFunkenstein]

 

It's like Game of Thrones -- if you don't win, you die.

 

N*gage never came close to winning. It died.

 

Ever wonder why there aren't any other boutique, upstart players in the smartphone scene lately?

 

Essential. And they're mostly dead, too. You might even call Blackberry boutique, and they largely succeeded up until around the time the iPhone 4 went to Verizon.

[Atari Pogostick]

 

It's like Game of Thrones -- if you don't win, you die.

 

N*gage never came close to winning. It died.

 

Ever wonder why there aren't any other boutique, upstart players in the smartphone scene lately?

 

This thread is about when it was relevant. Why are you bringing up it being dead?

[Flojomojo]

It was never relevant.

[high voltage]

made lots of headlines though

Edited September 10, 2018 by high voltage

[Montrealer]

In 2003, if Penny Arcade was making fun of you, you were bad.

[derFunkenstein]

made lots of headlines though

 

Kinda like the Virtual Boy. An established tech giant poops all over itself and fails to live up to the hype.

[Tanooki]

At least the Virtual Boy has some collector value, good games going for it, and an active base of people who still not only love it, seek it, want to use it, but also create new games for it as well. There's enough dumped prototypes and other projects it's piddly library has like doubled or some. Even some failures at least demand respect, the taco phone though, deserves at best that old salsa ad for Pace -- New York City?!

[Austin]

 

Kinda like the Virtual Boy. An established tech giant poops all over itself and fails to live up to the hype.

Eh... Like I said, I think it was a good concept with poor execution. Some of its early games were legitimately impressive at the time, but the failed execution of the first model sealed its fate.

 

Virtual Boy on the other hand, I can't ever imagine that having had any means of succeeding. Not in 1995 anyway (the affordable tech just wasn't there yet).

[mbd30]

Are "Atari Pogostick" and "JaguarVision" the same person?

[Austin]

Are "Atari Pogostick" and "JaguarVision" the same person?

I was about to ask the same thing.

[atarilovesyou]

Seems reasonable.

[phoenixdownita]

I was about to ask the same thing.

Maybe not http://atariage.com/forums/topic/282661-why-were-scaling-2d-arcade-games-not-brought-to-home-systems/page-5?do=findComment&comment=4110573

although if it's truly 2 individuals and were to encounter we'd assist to Star Trek "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield"

[godslabrat]

It seems like about every six months, we get a new member posts lots of "edgy" x versus y threads, feels the need to argue pedantically, and can't agree that water is wet. Anyone remember Underball? Protoplasm?

[Austin]

It seems like about every six months, we get a new member posts lots of "edgy" x versus y threads, feels the need to argue pedantically, and can't agree that water is wet. Anyone remember Underball? Protoplasm?

Oh damn.. I forgot about Protoplasm.

 

Rocket Man has a very specific link in his signature..

 

Coincidence?

 

[godslabrat]

Oh damn.. I forgot about Protoplasm.Rocket Man has a very specific link in his signature..Coincidence? proto.png

Niiiiiice.

[CaptainBreakout]

Yeesh. Well, I had one of these things. I still do in some box somewhere.

 

I was working at EA when they decided to support the thing. Everyone there laughed at the time. I decided to ignore it until I couldn't. Turned out ignoring it was a safe bet.

 

It wasn't until it was apparent that the platform was goin to die that I got interested in it.

 

That's the best time, imho, to collect for a platform. People unload boxed games for a song so they don't get stuck with unsold inventory, and the hacking community is usually at it's peak.

 

Somehow I ended up with a late prototype of the first model. I honestly don't remember how I did that.

 

I wanted to go all out with it and actually use it as my cell phone "until I can't stand it anymore" (was the escuse I told my friends and relatives at the time).

 

Turns out I used it for WAY longer than I expected. Two, maybe thread years at least...

 

It was really hackable... Didn't need any mods or crazy unlock stuff.

 

Oh, I forgot to mention that, to answer this topic's question about "what could they have done differently", I have a solid answer for that. Offer a competitive plan for entry level cell phone owners...

 

I remember looking into what plans my provider offered when I found out that EA (the company I worked for when it premiered) would offer that would support an N-Gauge. I think T-MOBILE had it listed as the HIGHEST tier... In a class by itself, and was also the highest month-to-month cost and didn't include anything toward buying the phone for signing up. Looking back, that mostly made my decision to ignore the thing.

 

Anyway, back to my prototype...

 

I found it it would work fine as a regular old SIMM phone with a data plan. Plus it had a nifty MP3 player (hardwired to 41k sample rate, which was the ONLY app that could use that sample rate).

 

One odd thing was it only took MMC cards, which look just like an SD card, but were... Um... Less fast or something... Can't remember the tech specs on why they were different than SD cards, but I do remember it was a bitch finding a large capacity MMC card since they were basically obsolete even then.

 

I did get... I think it was an 8gig MMC card, found on eBay of course.

 

I remember I played Zelda 2 all the way to the end on it.

 

Anyways, there were a ton of apps, mostly homebrew emulator ports, available for the thing then. Also had Bluetooth and other stuff that was fairly new. Okay webbrowsser that could do YouTube vids in a pinch (very impressive back then).

 

Anyways, I had a lot of fun with it. What started as a goofy experiment ended up becoming my main phone until the power jack broke (was a tube connector with a center pin... Never did like those... Jammed a copper wire in there for a month or so before it finally got too ridiculous).

 

Anyway, an amazing phone at the time, if one was willing to rock the taco look. Also, like I said before... The initial plans probably scared an untold majority away when the new users were critical.

[digdugnate]

It seems like about every six months, we get a new member posts lots of "edgy" x versus y threads, feels the need to argue pedantically, and can't agree that water is wet. Anyone remember Underball? Protoplasm?

2600problems was another one of em.

[derFunkenstein]

Maybe not http://atariage.com/forums/topic/282661-why-were-scaling-2d-arcade-games-not-brought-to-home-systems/page-5?do=findComment&comment=4110573

although if it's truly 2 individuals and were to encounter we'd assist to Star Trek "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield"

 

He was just logged in as the wrong user.

[Gentlegamer]

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