AAS Podcast #121: Nokia at the Game Developers Conference

[slitchfield]

In a GDC-inspired AAS podcast special, Ewan sits down with Jakko Kaidesoja (Nokia's VP of Games, Services and Software) to discuss the current status of the N-Gage ecosystem. It's a wide-ranging discussion and there's a LOT of meat in here, despite it only clocking in at 16 minutes - a must-listen for anyone remotely interested in N-Gage.

Read on in the full article.

[Kazutoyo]

Would be very grateful if someone cared to write down the highlights of this podcast, especially the stuff regarding N-Gage. Kinda hard to listen to this with a poor hearing

[Ewan]

Try in the full show notes, linked in the news article...

I'm currently in San Francisco, attending the Game Developers Conference, and I caught up with Jaakko Kaidesoja, Vice President of Gaming at Nokia. The N-Gage naturally falls under his jurisdiction, and in this podcast we talk about the latest developments, both good and bad, in the Next Generation Gaming System and in Nokia as a whole with the Ovi portal.

* Has Apple and the iPhone overtaken the N-Gage?
* What can Nokia learn from the success of the iPhone and the App Store.
* Nokia have announced one million profiles on N-Gage. What does this actually mean?
* How does this compare to the original N-Gage and N-Gage QD activity.
* N-Gage on the E75, and other form factors.
* Why is N-Gage not running on older hardware such as the N73?
* Not all sensor technologies will be on all handsets - how will this be handled?
* The difference between first party and third party titles, ports, java and native S60 coded games.
* Where is local area network gaming?
* N-Gage and the upcoming Ovi Store.
* The most surprising thing in 2008, and what looks good for 2009.

Kaidesoja and I have raised a number of issues in the podcast, and I'm sure that some of you will have follow up questions, He's offered to answer those questions in a further interview, so if you ave any questions to ask, please leave them in the comments and we'll do our best to address them in a follow-up article.

[morpheus2702]

What I took away from the podcast is that the writing is on the wall for NGage - giving way to Ovi. Can't say that I am surprised or disappointed. Was interested to know that there are a million registered users on NGage, but the issue of how many active users there are was kind of skipped around.

[neilhoskins]

Excellent interview by anybody's standards, if I may make so bold. I was waiting for the question, "why is the hardware on supposedly gaming-centric devices so crap (lack of graphics accelerator)?" but in actual fact, you could tell what his responses would have been from his responses to other hardware-related questions. He was talking like an skilled politician, and given that, I think you got an awful lot out of him. Paxo watch out!

[Ewan]

Originally Posted by morpheus2702

Was interested to know that there are a million registered users on NGage, but the issue of how many active users there are was kind of skipped around.

Hand on heart I asked before the tape rolled if Nokia were giving out that number - I suspect they wouldn't come close, and I was right. Yes I *could* have asked on tape as well (and if there was a number I would have) but I'm not a fan of the 'gotcha' style of interviews. When youhit an answer like "no." it kills the flow of an interview, and unless there's a really good reason to go there, I won;t go there.

[Ewan]

Originally Posted by neilhoskins

Excellent interview by anybody's standards, if I may make so bold. I was waiting for the question, "why is the hardware on supposedly gaming-centric devices so crap (lack of graphics accelerator)?" but in actual fact, you could tell what his responses would have been from his responses to other hardware-related questions. He was talking like an skilled politician, and given that, I think you got an awful lot out of him. Paxo watch out!

Neil,

Thanks very much for your comments, I am blushing a touch. Always nice to know that these wide ranging interviews are followed and eveeryone picks up on the nuances, even when with the time moving on Jaakko and I had to get to the next topic.

And yes, I think the answers to the hardware question is one that Nokia have sade many times before, and I didn;t think it was worthwhile hearing it again, so I focussed on other areas, such as the N73 not getting N-Gage, timescales on that decision, and why no choice there for the user (because of stuff outwith the game, eg the storefront and N-Gage client on the handset).