Nokia: "N73, N93 and N93i will NOT be getting N-Gage compatibility"

[Tzer2]

After almost eighteen months of silence, a Nokia forum moderator has finally made an official statement about the status of N-Gage on the N73, N93 and N93i. In short, N-Gage will NOT be coming to those phones. As many predicted, the relatively older hardware on those models (low amounts of RAM and an old OS version on all of them, a very slow processor on the N73) wasn't up to the job of handling next gen N-Gage games. Our editorial thoughts on this issue are below.

Read on in the full article.

[Rafe]

Oh dear. Really not good at all.

Was fairly obvious this was going to happen, but this is just going to give a lot of people one more reason to moan about N-Gage.

N93 - hmmm, dodgy argument alert... same hardware platform as N95 (I think) - similar free RAM.... but I would assume support here about not being worth it due to the number of devices sold.

[ccraig]

after reading your article i totally understand why, supporting them phones would hold the platform back and would mean probably dumbing down future games to run on all phones.
ppl will say that hackers got n-gage running on older phones and yes we know they did and that was done badly too with phone rebooting every time u got incoming call or anything running in background

[fernando20]

Well, about time something was done. I wonder what would happen if the N73 was ignored from the start, the base hardware for game makers would have higher specs, and perhaps games with better graphics would be the norm. Then Nokia wouldn't be allowed to dump the 3d hardware on current phones as they did.

lol, thinking about alternative timelines.

[Tzer2]

Rafe, AFAIK the N93 has 20 megs free RAM but the N95 has 30 megs with the later firmware versions?

On the other hand, if they're the same hardware platform then maybe Nokia could have created a new firmware version for the N93 which freed up similar amounts of RAM to the N95...

But I suppose the relatively low sales of the N93/N93i compared to the N95 would explain why the N95 got such an update while the N93/N93i didn't. (Also the N95 had a later version of S60, the N93/N93i ran the original S60 3rd without any feature packs, which might have affected things?)

Well, about time something was done. I wonder what would happen if the N73 was ignored from the start, the base hardware for game makers would have higher specs, and perhaps games with better graphics would be the norm. Then Nokia wouldn't be allowed to dump the 3d hardware on current phones as they did.

An interesting point, but I think it would still have had to be a graphics hardware-optional platform, because most of the cheaper N-Gage-compatible devices in recent years wouldn't have had graphics hardware anyway.

[Tzer2]

I've altered the news item to be less specific about the reasons for this decision, as this is all speculation. All Nokia will say is that they couldn't get N-Gage to work well enough on those models.

[Pawlee]

this is a real shame... but inevitable...

its a real shame because the n93 is still one of my fav fones to ever grace the earth, and if i still owned an n93 i would be very sore.

i spent no extra money on my n93 (i somehow managed to trade in an o2 n73 and got given an n93 even tho i didnt know o2 stocked n93s...) but if i had spent the money required to own an n93 i would expect some sorta of care from nokia...
...
to spend 500 quid on a nokia phone it would be nice to be treated with 500 quids worth of respect iinstead of forgotten for the next person screaming about n95s...

:(

(n85 and n86 are a perfect example of this modern day neglect/disrespect that nokia are openly displaying to people willing to spend over 400 quid on a phone...)

[Tzer2]

this is a real shame... but inevitable...

its a real shame because the n93 is still one of my fav fones to ever grace the earth, and if i still owned an n93 i would be very sore.

The N93 has definitely got the most gaming-friendly phone layout ever made. It's really really good for gaming, I reviewed as many games as I could on it before N-Gage launched. It's a shame this has happened.

In horizontal mode the N93 was an awesome gaming machine, all the buttons and the d-pad were perfectly laid out below the screen. I often wonder if the N93 was originally going to be the next gen replacement for the first gen N-Gage and QD. There was talk that a gaming-specific device would be launched in 2006, and that would tie in with the N93 very nicely.

(n85 and n86 are a perfect example of this modern day neglect/disrespect that nokia are openly displaying to people willing to spend over 400 quid on a phone...)

Erm... the N86 hasn't even launched yet! D'you mean the N96?

I don't think N85 owners are being treated badly though, they're getting what they were promised.

The problem Nokia has had with the N73 and N93 is they specifically promised N-Gage compatibility several times, at big official events too, and now they're breaking that promise.

[Kazutoyo]

It's a shame, but not a surprise.

The phones have an outdated OS (plain S60 3rd while all the phones that actually do have N-Gage are S60 3rd FP1 or FP2) and in the case of the N73, slower hardware (although that didn't stop N96 with it's 264 MHz ARM9).

I think it would have been possible to give the devices N-Gage if they had released FP1 firmwares for them. The FP0 () devices are noticeably slower than the FP1 devices (don't know how many of my acquaintances who complained about the speed in N73 & N80) and consume more RAM as well. Wouldn't surprise me if they lack some API functions that the current N-Gage app uses too.

[Hardeep1singh]

I always had a doubt this was going to happen but I think the real reason why this happened is not because these phones lack hardware capability but because Nokia doesn't want to support them as they don't sell anymore. FP1 is just a piece of software, which Nokia could've added if they wanted to but why do you think they would even bother?

If people like Illusion and BinPDA can run N-gage on every other Symbian they see, I don't see a reason why Nokia can't.

[snoyt]

Nokia should make amends and port a less heavy n-gage game for free to those platforms as an apology.

[chlettn]

Not a big surprise really. The N73 is on its way out anyway, being replaced with other devices, and if the N93/N93i combined ever reached five-digit sales I'd be surprised.

Originally Posted by Hardeep1singh

I always had a doubt this was going to happen but I think the real reason why this happened is not because these phones lack hardware capability but because Nokia doesn't want to support them as they don't sell anymore. FP1 is just a piece of software, which Nokia could've added if they wanted to but why do you think they would even bother?

As a recent Symbian-Foundation blog post said - if Nokia wanted to update a phone to a new FP version, they also have to update the Symbian version, which means they have had to pay Symbian again for the licensing the new version for every single updated phone. That was just not feasible, obviously.

Originally Posted by Hardeep1singh

If people like Illusion and BinPDA can run N-gage on every other Symbian they see, I don't see a reason why Nokia can't.

Because Nokia has a bit more obligation to make the games actually run well? If a cracked version has performance & stability problems, well, not a big deal as that's to be expected. But if an officially bought game doesn't run well on an N73, it hurts the reputation of N-Gage itself, and I can understand why Nokia doesn't want that.

[Tzer2]

Nokia should make amends and port a less heavy n-gage game for free to those platforms as an apology.

We had a long discussion about possible compensation on the AAN forums last year, and one of the best suggestions was to offer current N73 and N93 owners some free game activation codes (from Nokia's first party range which they own all the rights to), or a reduction in the price of a new compatible phone from a Nokia webshop.

They could restrict it to people who bought their N73 or N93 after the N-Gage announcement by asking for the IMEI code. The IMEI tells Nokia when a phone was bought, so they'd know someone might have conceivably purchased their phone with N-Gage in mind.

I doubt any of that will actually happen, but it seems like a good idea IMHO.

[lumothesinner]

with the state n-gage is atm cant most n-gage games be played on n73 and n93 as symbian games anyway - only one, mgs, resi and reset gen (and possibly a few others) are specific to n-gage whereas the rest of the catalogue is just ports from already available s60v3 games (or java - NFS!!!)

[ccraig]

Originally Posted by lumothesinner

with the state n-gage is atm cant most n-gage games be played on n73 and n93 as symbian games anyway - only one, mgs, resi and reset gen (and possibly a few others) are specific to n-gage whereas the rest of the catalogue is just ports from already available s60v3 games (or java - NFS!!!)

there is about 12 games what are specific to n-gage, that's more than 1/3 of games which is more than ppl think, and it's about to grow even more in next 2 months