It's finally here. Sure it's a beat em up, but the fact that this one looks so absolutely gorgeous, plays as smooth as it does (30 frames per second) and it's running on a mobile... One is pretty much a flagship title, and deservedly so. And that's before you consider global rankings, arena functionality, a massive customisation of your characters looks, and the sheer scale of combos makes it a perfect genre title that is exactly what you'd expect on a full sized console.
One clear message from Nokia's 'N-Gage in Barcelona' is that there will be no new N-Gage hardware in the near future (ie first half of 2006). The continuing push on mobile gaming, and driving the N-Gage brand onto other Series 60 devices in the next few years means that any new unit development would drain too many resources. Given some of the titles that have broken cover for 2006, and the plans laid out by Gerard Weiner and Nokia, I think it's a good decision. More news and commentary from Barcelona is going to be forthcoming.
Thomas Boys takes a chatty look round the recent Smartphone Show on Day 1. With starring entries from the P990, many Symbian handsets and the Orange man.
Although exact information from the Barcelona N-Gage & Next Gen gaming event is scarce right now, a few facts have filtered through, including the announcement by Nokia of two new games developed exclusively for N-Gage: Habbo Islands (which will allow existing and new members of the extremely popular Habbo Hotel community to interact in an N-gage-exclusive area of the Habbo world filled with tasks and mini-games), and Shadow-Born (a very very bizarre-sounding game which uses all aspects of your N-Gage or smartphone, including text messages, the to-do list, the calendar etc).
Nokia today announced the addition of three new business targeted Series 60 phones to its portfolio. The Nokia E60, E61 and E70, the first of the new Nokia Eseries range. The phones are based on Series 60 3rd edition and Symbian OS v9.1. The Nokia E60 provides a classic design with 3G and WLAN functionality. The E61 is a GSM quad-band, WCDMA2100 (3G), WLAN phone with, a full keyboard on the phone, a 16 million colour screen, and support for all the major corporate email systems. The E70, with two variants one for Europe/Asia (triband GSM with WCDMA) and one for the Americas (GSM50, in place of GSM 900) is an all in one messaging device with when opened up reveal a full messaging keyboard.
Mobile Innovation have announced that their TRY testing tool is now available for Series 60 3rd Edition. TRY allows developers to speed up, automate, and improve the quality of their testing process.
The story of the Smartphone Show is that this year developers and their needs are to the fore. After the announcements of the new multi platform developer tools in the new Nokia Carbide series, and the UIQ Developer program and tools, Symbian have announced a range of their own initiatives. These include free developer certificates, a free Symbian Signed route to market for freeware and opensource, free Symbian Signed testing tools and memebrship of the Eclipsse Foundation.
Nokia today introduced the Carbide.c++ family of development tools. There are three editions: Professional - for device developers and high performance application, Developer - offering a new graphical Rapid Application Development for advanced level application developers, and Express - an entry level tool available for download at no cost based on the Eclipse IDE.
Zi Corporation will be demoing their Qix discovery engine technology at the Smartphone Show and talking about recent research showing Qix has the potential to become a key enabler. Qix is an innovative solution to the problem of increasingly complex click paths as Smartphones add more features and applications. Qix brings up a list of options (Contacts, Programs, Bookmarks and more) after a user starts typing the name or number on the phone keypad allowing for speedy access. Additionally Zi will be providing visitors to their stand (83) with free (usually $19.95 through Handango) copies of their eZiText (Series 60) and eZiText FEP (UIQ) programs.
Quickoffice Inc. today announced a licensing agreement with Nokia which will see Quickoffice (an office suite allowing the editing, viewing and creation of Word, Excel and Powerpoint files) included on the Series 60 platform. This likely means that all future Series 60 phones will come with Quickoffice on board.
Symbian in conjunction with Forum Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and UIQ has announced the Symbian Signed Freeware Route to Market, sponsored and paid for by Symbian and the supporting companies.
UIQ have announced the launch of its new Developer Program to co-incide with the launch of the public SDK for UIQ 3 and the launch of the Sony Ericsson P990. The web portal (to be launched at the Smartphone Show) will allow free registration and enable access to content and services aimed at helping the UIQ developer. UIQ note that 'the web portal will offer all the information and services expected to support a developer community, such as news, development kits and tools downloads, documentation, references, tutorials and guides, knowledge base, Frequently Asked Questions, code samples, technical articles, tips, community events information, and, at a later stage, more advanced services such as development, marketing and business support'. We'll be talking to UIQ at the Smartphone Show to bring you more on this.
