N-Gage is Dead... Again?
posted Saturday Oct 31, 2009 by Scott Ertz
Nokia, the makers of most of the annoying phones you have ever owned, has announce that they will be discontinuing the N-Gage brand. This news probably comes as a shock to most, who thought the brand was discontinued in 2005, but they would be wrong.
The original N-Gage, released in 2003, was a terribly designed little handset that looked like a combination of a Sega Game Gear and a T-Mobile Sidekick (pictured here). The theory was sound - one device for Internet, phone and gaming, but Nokia didn't seem to get any of the aspects right. It was a fairly large device, which made talking on the phone rather arduous. The cartridge slot for the games was lodged in with the battery, meaning you couldn't swap games while the device was on, instead you had to pop the battery off first.
In 2005, Nokia discontinued the N-Gage, but not everything that went with it. The N-Gage Network has been available on almost all Nokia phones, but that has proven to be as successful as the device itself. Like Microsoft and the Video Marketplace (soon to be the Zune Marketplace) on the 360, the N-Gage Network will now become part of their Ovi store, and only available on Nokia smartphones.
Considering the overall failure of the brand, I think it is about time for Nokia to let loose of the dream and let it die. What do you guys think? Did anyone out there own one of these? Let us know in the comments section.
