14 DAY TRIAL // Are you a handheld gaming system fan? If you are, then you must also like the N-Gage. It seems that Pocket Gamers has found some "top secret" information about an upcoming second N-Gage coming from Nokia. They also claim to have found some information about a workshop being planned in Madrid to show the new N-Gage to European companies.
Why would Nokia be afraid to publicly unveil the new handheld's launch at this year's Game Developer's Conference? In 2005, Nokia announced that it would move its N-Gage games' capabilities onto a series of smartphones, making these devices available in 2007, complete with games.
The first N-Gage did however encounter a few problems at the time it was launched, mainly because competition was fierce and its price didn't quite reflect its potential. The poor sales performance can also be attributed to the poor selection of games compared to its competitors. It was more than twice as expensive as a Game Boy Advance SP on release day.
So it wouldn't be such a surprise if Nokia was in fact in the works of a new N-Gage as the next-generation of N-Gage was announced at E3 2005 to appear within Nokia's multimedia handsets and with a few good games. Also, they met a few problems concerning the very construction of the device: to insert a game, users had to remove the phone's plastic cover and the battery compartment as the game slot was next to it. Another "clumsy" feature was the speaker and microphone being located on the side edge of the phone, making it very uncomfortable to use when talking.