N-Gage Sales Chart for 23rd of February to 1st of March 2009

[Tzer2]

Another week, another chart dominated by Tetris... Surely everyone has had enough of that since 1985?

Read on in the full article.

[eletrix]

HI AAN
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one suggestion for nokia.
To make every phones is released.NOKIA GAMES compatible.not ngage compatible.
and update hardware and games time passing like pc games.


I really hope.
nokia enrich Symbian Feature Pack 1 with Multi-Touch.
(i know DS is popular even single touch.but with some buttons)
(and one thing that has made me always choose nokia is that hers hardware is always ahead everybody.and the missing multi-touch is a big hole)
a good SDK.
and hope that OVI STORE can reaally make it.

what do you think about these suggestions ???

[Tzer2]

All of the recently announced S60 phones have been N-Gage compatible, so I think it will be standard from now on.

As for multitouch, well... I don't think it's really that important, certainly not for gaming. As I mentioned before, the Nintendo DS has the best touchscreen games in the world and it doesn't have multitouch. Even on stuff like web-browsing, multitouch isn't really needed. E.G. to zoom in on the 5800 you double-tap the screen in the area you want to zoom, which is just as easy as any multitouch method.

Actually, to be honest, any interface which *forces* people to use multitouch is a mistake, because it stops you using the phone one-handed. One-handed use is REALLY important if you want an interface to become mainstream, a lot of people use their phones while carrying a bag etc.

[argh]

But the DS also has hardware keys suitable for gaming (d-pad and action buttons).

For many standard games (not purely designed for touch screens) to be touchscreen compatible, multi-touch is quite important - a sort of on-screen d-pad and action buttons can be used to emulate hardware controls. Not a perfect solution by any means, but it does make it easier to make games more cross-platform.

I know that the lack of a d-pad on some recent Windows Mobile devices has left them with a lack of games (none of the emulators or games requiring such controls are of any use). People have put together applicatiosn to hook in to the accelerometers in some cases, to pretend to be directions at a low level, but it really doesn't make most games playable.

Obviously I'm not disagreeing that single-touch touchscreen games can be great too, it just means that the games have to be specifically designed for that interface.

[Geostigma]

Me thinks Ovi store would only contain apps and not games cuz the 30-70 share makes it reasonable to release games on store than on ngage.i think i'd prefer Nokia games as a general than ngage if games were to be added to Ovi.but am a nigerian so payment method is kinda hard.so nokia's voucher doesn't extend here.also the pace of games from ngage is too slow.the only reason am hangin on is cuz am a fanboy.

[Tzer2]

But the DS also has hardware keys suitable for gaming (d-pad and action buttons).

...but they usually aren't used in Nintendo's touch-based games. Usually you can control the game by single touch alone, so their interface would not require multitouch at all.

It's very difficult to hold a stylus and DS and press buttons simultaneously, so they tend to make touch games entirely controlled by touch. Animal Crossing, Brain Training and Nintendogs for example can be controlled entirely by touch.

For many standard games (not purely designed for touch screens) to be touchscreen compatible, multi-touch is quite important

I see your argument, and I agree that multi-touch would be convenient, but I don't agree that multi-touch is NEEDED.

The accelerometer can act as the direction pad, (and come to think of it the iPhone uses that method in many games) so that doesn't use the touchscreen at all.

Other buttons can be displayed on-screen and tapped one at a time.

I can't think of any phone games which require direction pads AND a button AND a second button to be pressed simultaneously. An accelerometer and a single-touch screen are enough to simulate the controls on button-based phone games.

Me thinks Ovi store would only contain apps and not games

Nokia have already said it will have apps, games, music, video, themes, wallpaper, ringtones and other content.