Dis-n-gaged

Continuing my gadget blips, this is a more recent era gaming gadget that had some success but not as much as Nokia hoped. The 'N-Gage' (mk1) was pretty much the first gaming phone and was Nokia's attempt to kick-start what is now a huge multi-billion dollar business globally.

However, the n-gage didn't get the kind of success Nokia really hoped for despite the many millions invested in marketing the idea. I actually liked this phone and did happily use it as both a phone and gaming device, although admittedly the main game I played was Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. The funniest quirk of the design of the phone was that you had to hold the thin edge of it to your head to make calls, so it kind of looked pretty comical! (Check out http://sidetalking.com/ !)

Nokia subsequently brought out the 'N-Gage QD' which removed the side-talking feature and added a backlight and made it a bit smaller, as well as putting the game card slot on the outside instead of inside behind the battery! ;)

Last year marked the end of an era when the N-Gage devices were killed off, the N-Gage as a game platform still exists but only as games on various 'normal' Nokia phones. As quirky as it looked I think it was a pretty interesting concept which was in many ways ahead of its time with things such as location-based gaming over mobile-phone networks - something which is widespread today with iPhone and Android phones. It kind of makes you feel sad for Nokia having pumped all the money into trying to make it a success.