Nokia claims strong launch for N-Gage

By Games Industry.biz Published 20 October, 2003

N-Gages are flying off the shelves, claims Nokia CEO.

The first official statement from Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia on the launch of its N-Gage game deck has claimed that the device is sold out at many retailers following a "very positive" consumer response.

Commenting on the launch of the N-Gage in his statement on Nokia's recently announced third quarter results, Nokia chairman and CEO Jorma Ollila said that "many outlets sold out of the device during the first day of release… Following on from this, we are seeing strong order intake from distributors and retailers."

No official figures have been released as yet for the N-Gage's first week on sale, with the only confirmed figure we've seen being Chart-Track's tally for the number of handsets sold at UK games retailers - a somewhat dismal figure well below the 500 mark.

Nokia's third quarter figures showed the company continuing to grow its market share of the mobile phone business, although stiff competition from Asian manufacturers bringing cheaper devices to the market affected the Finnish giant's margins somewhat.

Mobile phone sales for the quarter were flat, at some €5.6 billion, but the company saw 23 per cent volume growth in the quarter, ahead of the industry growth of some 15 per cent. Nokia now estimates that it owns some 39 per cent of the mobile phone market as a whole.

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Comments (38) Latest comment 8 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • deadlock #1 8 years ago

    I'm sure I speak for the majority of consumers out there when I say that this product does not n-gage me.

    ahem.

  • Pirotic #2 8 years ago

    "many outlets sold out of the device during the first day of release"

    our 3 local GAME shops haven't sold a single n-gage so far, i suspect somebody is telling porkies.

  • TipTop #3 8 years ago

    I suspect I should refer you to a previous thread. Nokia's marketing department needs shooting for the 'games' first, phone 'second' approach as it's very misleading. However, this won't shift without a contract and should be seen as a mobile phone with better gaming than other phones. It's not better than an SP (though the TH ads look cool), but is shifting for FREE with a £25 a month contract.

  • ralphwolfenstein #4 8 years ago

    According to Nokia, the N-Gage went on sale in 30,000 outlets worldwide

    According to Chart-Track, 500 were sold through the 6,000 chart-tracked stores - of these, I believe only Game, with 340 stores in the UK are really pushing the N-Gage. You can't get one from any of the supermarkets, Argos, WHSmith or even Dixons (to my knowedge, but do correct me)...

    On this basis, GAME are probably selling about 1 per store... That's about one more than expected, given that they're a videogames chain trying to sell a phone for £180 more than the Orange Shop across the road...

    I think the N-Gage is a horrible device, but if GAME can shift a unit per store, how many do you think actual phone outlets are moving? 4-5 per store? That gives Nokia an immediate worldwide install base of about 150,000...

    This is just speculation of course. Slightly more educated speculation than the 'N-Gage a failure according to Chart Track' nonsense which the Games industry as a whole is trying to perpetuate, but speculation nonetheless. I may be over, or even underestimating...

    But I think it's important to keep an open mind towards the N-Gage. Critics who are writing it off as a games console, comparing sales with console sales rather than phones, quoting chart track sales as valid indicators are rather missing the point... Similarly, the serious gamers well may turn up their noses at another upstart company trying to grab a slice of 'their' industry, but thats not the angle Nokia are taking...

    An estimated 450 million handsets will be sold worldwide this year. All Nokia has to do to achieve a stunningly large year-one userbase, by our games industry's standards, is make sure that 2% of those are N-Gages. Just 2%. Nokia already own 39% of the handset market, so if just one in 20 of each phone they sell is an N-Gage, they've done all right...

    Nokia don't need to sell a single N-Gage through GAME - stocking them there is purely about gaining product awareness, and re-inforcing the gaming capabilities, and the high stand-alone price is to add perceived value to the hand-set itself

    It's a phone - not a games console - a phone... Until the games industry realises this, you're gong to see an awful lot more meaningless reportage from the games press



  • Pirotic #5 8 years ago

    has anybody reviewed the games yet? for £34.99 i can't imagine many people buying them without knowing if they are any good.

  • Shinji #6 8 years ago

    It's a phone - not a games console - a phone... Until the games industry realises this, you're gong to see an awful lot more meaningless reportage from the games press

    Wrong. If your assessment is correct, and it really is a phone rather than a games console - and people are buying it as such - then the N-Gage is an even more dismal failure than the games industry is making out. From the perspective of this industry, it doesn't matter a tuppenny damn how large the installed base of the system is, if nobody is buying software for it - and if it's a device being bought as a phone, not a games console, then that software isn't about to fly off the shelves, is it?

    That's what this comes down to. Razors and razorblades, every time. If ten million people buy the hardware but only 100,000 buy a unit of software, then the N-Gage has failed completely from the perspective of the games industry. This isn't a binary situation, you have to understand; Nokia could consider a device with a 10 million installed base a huge success, but for game publishers and developers, it could be the lamest duck that ever failed to walk. In that situation, you'd have mobile phone press hailing it as a conquering hero, and games press branding it a waste of space - and BOTH would be correct.

  • TipTop #7 8 years ago

    Nicely put Ralph, superbly articulating what I have been saying in a very clumsy manner all week. To dismiss the N-Gage is a dangerous exercise. Given that mobile phone ring tones now present a bigger market than the record singles that inspire them, so will the N-Gage get a grip on mobile gaming over the GBA that inspires it. As a game machine it aint great, but Betamax was always the better format ....

  • TipTop #8 8 years ago

    ... and what do you base your assertions on Shinji? Given there are no actual figures yet from the mobile retailers (including the games they are selling), your bias shine through. Objective my arse.

  • ralphwolfenstein #9 8 years ago

    that's a fair point, but I think you'd need to check with publishers about the terms for releasing games for the device, and what constitutes a success for them...

    your 10:1 attach rate assumption does need a fairly large IF in front of it... that said, we're all rather forced to make assumptions at the moment! all I'm trying to say is, don't let the obvious flaws of the machine as a gaming device cloud the ability to asses it as a complete package... and until we see official figures and an attach rate, we're all limited to speculation at the moment

  • Pirotic #10 8 years ago

    Well said :)

    A phone is a one off purchase, if a ton of people buy it to use as a phone then you could claim its a sucessfull phone, but unless enough of the people who buy the device use it for games and buy a decent number of games, nobody will bother releasing games for the thing and as a result you'll just have a very expensive phone :p

    its like back when the PS2 came out, despite getting top sales on release sony were very worried about how many people got it with one game, then just used it as a cheap DVD player.

  • presh #11 8 years ago

    Excellent post Shinji!

    Nokia's approach to handset design and sales is to make a huge range of different phones, and see what sticks. It is a great approach, resulting in great handsets like the 7650 and 7210, and some others that dissapear without trace. For example, a handy chart near my desk shows that there are currently over 50 handsets available from Nokia.

    Yes, the large number of handsets solfd means that Nokia only need to grab a small percent of the market for the N-Gage to have been a numerical success, but as Shinji rightly says, you need to take developers with you if it is to succeed as a games device. If I want a phone, then there are a hell of a lot better handsets out there.

    Nokia are already planning the N-Gage II, and hopefully they will have taken on board many of the critisisms about the device. But from the perspective of a games developer, it is a hellishly expensive bit of kit to develop for.

    Normal java game = 2-3 months, tens of thousands of pounds.

    N-Gage game = 6 months +, £250,000 +

    What I suspect will haoppen is that the N-Gage will be used by many developers as a platform to run high-end Java games (i.e. Series 60). But the cost of developing pure N-Gage content is too high, and the risks too big.

  • David_W #12 8 years ago

    As for reviews, <a href=http://w ww.metacritic.com/games/ngage/alpha/>this</a> doesn't look that good for Nokia.
    Edited by 1 at 20/10/03 @ 12:56

  • TipTop #13 8 years ago

    Man when the figures come out, one of us is going to be eating humble pie. I rather suspect it'll be me :(

    ..and yea, another Metacritic fan.
    Edited by 1 at 20/10/03 @ 12:59

  • ralphwolfenstein #14 8 years ago

    Shinji, further to that last post…

    Yes I see your point – for the games industry to consider the N-Gage a success, it needs to have helped swell ‘our’ companies’ coffers, helped ‘us’ reach a wider market… Nokia are working to a different model to most consoles, ie the subsidy comes from the contract rather than the software, and they will profit from N-Gage regardless of software sales…

    Nonetheless, the developers and publishers who’ve committed to N-Gage are unlikely to have done so blindly – I think the sales model represents a good return for publishers, without the same high licensing fee to consider. There is less competition, with only a handful of titles available. Cost of goods is low… Now if Nokia has hoodwinked our industry’s players into developing for a device which will never achieve a high attach rate, then you could fairly claim the N-Gage has been good for Nokia but bad for the industry…

    But I suspect the games publishers who’ve committed to the platform are well aware that the deck was never going to shift through traditional retail, that the attach rate and the reason for the consumer to buy more than one game is very different to the GBA’s… Even with an attach rate of 1:1 – with a big enough install base, and a small enough choice of titles, the rewards are there for the most compelling games…

    And Pirotic – I don’t think the N-Game is that expensive a phone do you? With contract, it’s comparable with most other offers – certainly not the most expensive phone out there

  • presh #15 8 years ago

    Given that mobile phone ring tones now present a bigger market than the record singles that inspire them, so will the N-Gage get a grip on mobile gaming over the GBA that inspires it. As a game machine it aint great, but Betamax was always the better format ....

    Are you comparing the N-Gage to VHS? Erm, in case you hadn't noticed, the GBA is the one with the massive installed user base, not the N-Gage. And the N-Gage is the technically superior device in terms of power.

    Also, your example of the ringtones market is largely wrong. Yes, ringtones generate large sales, but they don't actually make much money for anyone. The example you refer to is a Sugarbabes ringtone which outsold the corresponding CD single. Fine, except single sales never generate much revenue anyway - they are primarily a way of promoting albums. You can't take one small part of a market and produce a direct comparison with something quite different.

    Whatever my personal opinion of the N-Gage, it is not a strong business proposition for either the games market or the phone market. It does neither task as well as a dedicated device, and it has only been out for a week and is already being sold at a loss (sorry, subsidised).

    I think we are looking at this device from the point of view of pure gamers, and that is fine. However, you have to remember that we are far, far outnumbered by people that just want a cheap, simple phone, and no fancy 3D graphics, and the N-Gage is not it.

  • presh #16 8 years ago

    Nonetheless, the developers and publishers who’ve committed to N-Gage are unlikely to have done so blindly – I think the sales model represents a good return for publishers, without the same high licensing fee to consider. There is less competition, with only a handful of titles available. Cost of goods is low… Now if Nokia has hoodwinked our industry’s players into developing for a device which will never achieve a high attach rate, then you could fairly claim the N-Gage has been good for Nokia but bad for the industry…

    See my above post for development costs for the N-Gage. Nokia has funded the first tranche of titles for the device, in the hjope of achieving critical mass. Outside of those 'paid for' developers, I have not heard of a single company that thinks it is a good idea to risk that much money on an untested device. Yes, it creates a catch-22 situation, but Nokia should have seen that coming and listened to the industry more.

  • ralphwolfenstein #17 8 years ago

    and er, yeah... I'm also expecting to helping myself come pie eating time, simply because my gut feeling says 'it'll never work'

    I just think the games industry needs to re-think its reporting. Too much of the criticism is only valid if you try and position the N-gage within our little gold-fish bowl of an industry. Let's hear what Activision or THQ think of the machine - it's their games on the shelf...

  • DDevil #18 8 years ago

    To be fair, we got 10 in between our two shops the first day and we sold out of them within a few hours.

    Still don't like the N-Gage by the way... Played Pandemonium on it yesterday. Its as bad as I remember it.

  • presh #19 8 years ago

    I agree with you there Ralph. The traditional software developers seem to be just sitting back and letting other people take risks with mobile versions of their titles, without wanting to help much or get their hands dirty.

    It might backfire on them - the mobile developer I work for now sells over 300,000 copies of a popular game, and we are by no means one of the big boys. The difference in the mobile space is that you have to be lean and move fast, two things that the console and PC industry are terrible at. That slowness might mean that they miss the boat completely...

  • TipTop #20 8 years ago

    Presh I appreciate Sega, EA and Eidos do not represent game makers globally, but their stated support for the N-Gage, their release schedules and the games already out show significant support.

    As for the ringtones comment, fair point about the album sales. However I was trying to illustrate that mobile phones crossover several markets and often dominate. Combined ringtone sales are larger than combined singles sales.

    The N-Gage represents a signifcant crossover product. To dismiss it out of hand (and lets face it reporting 500 toal UK sales is hardly objective reporting - and not just EG, but most game magazines).

    Both Sony and then Microsoft were ridiculed for entering the market, but now have established themselves, Nokia have now entered. They'll get abuse, they'll have design issues and heaven forbid they'll have bad games (cos as we all know quality is always high in the games industry ??). However it would have been nice to see some objectivity about it's release rather than the small minded sniping that as a community we have a reputation for. Change is a hard thing to accept.
    Edited by 1 at 20/10/03 @ 13:23

  • prettyboytim #21 8 years ago

    I would be surprised if those buying an N-gage didn't also buy at least one game for it. After all, if you're not buying it for the games, what *are* you buying it for? There's loads of other (probably cheaper) phones out there that don't make you look like you've had an accident at an Ultimate convention when you're talking into it.

  • prettyboytim #22 8 years ago

    I think I might buy one of these once they come out with a version 2.0...

  • Shrui #23 8 years ago

    *yawn*

    Each time an Ngage story goes up here are we going to get this discussion everytime???

    Chillout a bit guys, accept each other's differences and move on. Did the Xbox Vs. PS2 Flame wars learn us nothing?

  • Shrui #24 8 years ago

    Although, granted no one is using l33t speak and using slightly more words these days! That's evolution for you! ;)

  • TipTop #25 8 years ago

    Good point. Truce?

    (though I feel I made the more valid arguments given the limited material I had to play with :) )

  • retr0gamer #26 8 years ago

    Didn't the saturn supposedly sell out at launch in america and europe as well. This news means absolutely nothing. However if nokia said it then it must be true.

  • ssuellid #27 8 years ago

    Mobile phone gaming seems to get completely missed by the traditional gamers and traditional gaming media - looks like the N-Gage will be as well. Everyone keeps mentioning the fact that you have to take the battery out to change games whilst omitting the fact that the majority of games will be available via download. Mobile phone gaming is already a success without using traditional sales outlets yet you never hear about it in the gaming press.

  • mal #28 8 years ago

    The Eq - Mostly we talk about Marmite and Kippers. Why do you ask?

  • deadlock #29 8 years ago

    I don't know if the N-Gage will be as successful as Nokia would like (there are too many problems IMO, not the least of which is the convoluted process for switching carts), but I can definitely see the appeal of mobile multiplayer gaming. What might be interesting is if other manufacturers follow suit and implement an N-Gage type mobile with gaming capabilities. Multiplatform mobile gaming anyone?

    Just to expand, what I mean is that you could have, say a Sony-Ericsson owner and a Nokia owner playing against each other in the same way that you can have a Mac owner and a IBM-PC owner compete against each other in Quake 3.
    Edited by 1 at 20/10/03 @ 15:29

  • Shrui #30 8 years ago

    "It's a story about N-Gage and the people are talking about the issues that are surrounding it. If you don't like it, ignore the thread - no one's forcing you to read it."

    People are repeating the same issues, same comments we've heard before on Ngage stories. I just wanted to save EG from having to monitor & respond to another 100+ comment thread.

    You have given me an idea for what to do with my future career once I get my computing degree though - "Knitting Patterns of The Dead!" You kill the zombies by using the special USB needles to knit them down (some may say this will be a copy of "Typing Of The Dead" but I think the new and exciting gameplay angle will swing it!).

    I'm trade marking that this afternoon so hands off! ;)

  • ralphwolfenstein #31 8 years ago

    "whether the games/system is crap what do we care as long the dough keeps coming in"

    but what do THQ have to say about it?

    did I guess the corporate agenda right?

  • quantumsheep #32 8 years ago

    skipping the whole 'how's the n-gage doing' thing, I'd just like to say 'nice one' ralphwolfenstein. You make good points without resorting to the usual shit throwing. Post more - EG needs you! ;)

  • obscure #33 8 years ago

    htt p://www.1up.com/article2/0,4364,1358051,00.asp

    Doesn't sound too hot.

  • eviltobz #34 8 years ago

    n: kudos to Nokia. there's not a single fucking noteworthy game for this damn trendy phone thing. it was next to impossible, but they did it.

    i'd have to disagree. the port of thps is fantastic. its a huge franchise and a pretty damn perfect conversion and it kicks the arse off anything i've seen on the gba (like for like, not comparing it to wario ware or advance wars or anything here). unfortunately its the only thing that impressed me on it so far. tomb raider felt pretty uncontrolable, and the other stuff was pants.

  • malloc #35 8 years ago

    Yes but then thps has already been done (and very well at that) on the GBA, PC and all consoles, so I think it's fairly safe to say that those that want it already have it, and it won't be selling any consoles.

  • ssuellid #36 8 years ago

    I'm not surprised its not selling massively in the US. Its a GSM phone and the US still don't buy that many GSM phones plus the coverage in the US is relatively shite. Also in Europe almost everyone, including kids has a mobile - in the US its still predominately business users and people with cash.

  • deadlock #37 8 years ago

    I remember reading a couple of years ago that the reason mobile phone take-up in the US was so slow was because of the model that the SPs had adopted. Basically, users had no control over the size of their bills, because they were charged for every call, regardless of whether they had originated it or not.

    In other words, if I rang someone from my mobile, I was charged (as you'd expect). However, if someone rang me, I was charged for that call as well.

    Does anyone know if this is still the case, or have US SPs moved to a more logical model?

  • ssuellid #38 8 years ago

    Nokia say they have sold 400,000 N-Gages worldwide in two weeks: -

    http://www.reuters.co .uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNews&storyID=3667092&se ction=news

    Its sounds like a lot of phones but its about the number Nokia make overall per day.

    Lots of contrasting figures floating about and no-one know for sure. But 400,000 in first two weeks of launch is not very much for a new mobile phone so it sounds feasable. Most games sites have been reporting that the numbers are either units shipped or exagerated sales but if they managed to find some figures of phone sales for other Nokia phones then 400,000 is not a massive number. About October last year Nokia was rumoured to be selling up to 600,000 camera phones a month.

    Only a muppet would buy one of these at full price from a games shop.
    Edited by 2 at 23/10/03 @ 13:53