I haven't posted about mobile gaming in a while despite being sent a Nokia N81 pre-loaded with several N-Gage launch titles. So here's a quick catch-up on the burgeoning new platform.
First up, the nice bit: Konami is set to support N-Gage with a range of familiar 'brands', beginning with Metal Gear Solid. The title will be developed by Ideaworks3D, one of the key N-Gage studios since the first version of the phone, and is due out in June. Apart from 'advanced' 3D visuals, the game boasts a unique (ish) feature, allowing you to change the colour of Snake's clothing by taking a photo with your phone camera and using the predominant image as a texture map. Poor, poor Snake.
Now for the bad news, and it's something I suspected would happen all along. According to news site, All About N-Gage, any game purchase you make from the N-Gage Showroom, is locked to the phone you downloaded it to. So upgrade your phone and, oh dear, all your games are gone. Of course, this is usually the case with Java downloads from network operator portals, but as the All About N-Gage feature points out, those guys aren't trying to build a global online community while pushing their platform as a genuine alternative to say, the Nintendo DS. Also, N-Gage games are a lot more expensive.
Nokia is apparently saying this is all about digital rights management, but even Apple lets you move your purchased iTunes content from one Mac to another at least a few times (plus Nokia's music service allows tunes to be ported from one handset to your next). Many of us upgrade our handsets several times a year, so adopting an aggressive DRM protection system that may be fine for a console like the Wii, isn't really fair.
It's not smart either - by the time you've bought four or five games your incentive to upgrade to a shiny new Nokia phone seriously diminishes. Isn't selling new handsets quite important to a phone manufacturer?
