the next Ngage! THE ZEN-GAGE!

Hình như Nokia chuẩn bị sản xuất con N-gage mới hay sao ấy, bà con xem rồi bình phẩm nha


In 2003 Nokia entered the portable gaming arena with the N-Gage. They
were widely criticized for a bad design and a lack of video game
knowledge, but they persisted. Releasing the N-Gage QD to address
concerns with their first system shows that the platform is
technically one that can last a good few years. Now as time rolls on
the Gameboy Dual Screen and Playstation Portable are reaching the
marketplace, and the Gizmondo is on its ways. One must wonder what
Nokia will do next? They have long stated they are committed to the
mobile gaming market and the N-Gage line till some point in early
2006... but where do they go from here?

My answer is the obvious one, the Zen-Gage. You could call it N-Gage
2, O-Gage, Next-Gage, the N-2, or even the name I prefer, N-Gage MkII
(but Ewan thinks Zen-Gage reads better!), but it must happen and any
video game historian will tell you the same: if a system fails to
gain significant market share within a few years the only solution is
to move to newer tech and try to grab market share with a head start
on the next generation's hardware battle. To that end I've tried to
explore what I think the Zen-Gage, should and could be.

Perhaps the most important change here is the move to a Communicator
style foldable body and the options this allows. Some of the biggest
general use complaints against the current N-Gage designs are the
vertically oriented screen and two-handed use as a cell phone.
Switching to a Communicator style body allows the unit to be a phone
when a phone is wanted (ie the unit is closed) and stunning when it's
game time.

By hiding the game screen inside and giving it much more physical
real estate it can be easily grown to the new gorgeous wide screen
dimensions mentioned above and when that new screen is powered by a
jacked-up version of the new NVidia GoForce 3D 4500 mobile graphics
chip could easily deliver gaming comparable to the latest in console
gaming (I'm talking PS2 and GameCube here, no joke). Backward
compatibilty can be retained with a 176x208 screen window easily
accomdated. Nokia's version 3 of Series 60 promises support for
different screen sizes, so compatibility will not be a problem.
Making sure the Zen-Gage can run the original N-gage games is of
paramount importance - even the new Gameboy can still run the
original Tetris cartridge.

Now some are likely criticizing my belief that the original 104 Mhz
ARM processor is still enough for the next generation, but think
about it like this. What challenges the N-Gages processor in this
generation is primarily the software 3D rendering and the real-time
decoding of in game music. With both of those tasks moved to hardware
specifically for these tasks, the bottleneck on performance has been
removed and the CPU can scream like it's supposed to. Equally
important, reusing the original 104 Mhz ARM processor assures
backward compatible with legacy titles and keeps costs down.

Beyond the obvious performance bumps, this new model also ups the
ante by adding touch screen capability (via Series 60 version 3
again) and voice recognition as a counter to their addition in
Nintendo's new DS and with the dual MMC/SD cards (both standards to
be supported) allows the possibility of multi-card games or the use
of one as a hard drive for storing downloaded content and MP3s with
which to enhance your in game and smartphone experience.

Using the internal card like the XBOX uses it's hard drive to do
custom game soundtracks is very cool, but with the added bonus that
these could be accessed for ringtones or MP3 listening outside of a
game. Over time this becomes a significant feature.

The Zen-Gage, if it was delivered in October of 2005 with a solid
line-up of titles, at a contract free price of under £20 (including
perhaps agorgeous Ashen sequel and one or two nice big original
titles) would make huge waves and easily stand against the PSP when
it debuts... so long as the 6-10 hour play time of the QD could be
matched with this unit. If Nokia wanted to really push technology
they could build in 3G support and allow real-time broadband style
Arena gameplay, but this is more a question of world's networks being
ready and would probably not be cost effective - why not go the Wi-Fi
route while we're waiting? The Nokia 9500 Communicator has this on
board already. And if we're talking about out and about in the world,
can we think about a GPS reciever? OR at least allow the external
card slot to accept SD I/O hardware so we can add our own?

So is this the Next-Gage? Is this what it will be? Only time will
tell but the technology is there and Nokia has the finances, so hold
on to your butts because the pillars of gaming heaven may yet get the
shaking Sony's PSP was unable to deliver.