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.
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).
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.
A downloadable demo of Catan for N-Gage has just been made available on N-Gage.com. Catan, pubilshed by Capcom, is a strategy game based on the extremely popular German board game "Siedler Von Catan" which has sold over 10 million copies worldwide. The full Catan N-Gage game went on sale earlier this month.
Crystaix's puzzle game, JewelRumble for Series 60, has had a minor update to version 1.2.1. Internet high score tables and addictive modes of gameplay mean it's worth having a look at this java title.
In a 'belt and braces' move, Nokia has signed a licensing deal with Symantec to preload the latter's anti-virus software onto (unspecified) future smartphones. Read more...
Steve takes Route 66 Mobile Britain 2006 for UIQ (P910i and A1000 only, though) out for a spin around Berkshire and finds the experience err... illuminating. Read the review here.
Nokia's PC Suite has been updated to version 6.6.18 (from 6.6.16). New features include PC text messaging for the Nokia 3230, improved Internet connections and better connectivity stability. For those having problems with syncing this is a recommended upgrade.
With the sneaky URL name of www.1001111-1001110-1000101.org, Nokai have launched the website for their 3D Beat-em-up, One. Worth checking out because whoever designed the site must have seriously been on the hard stuff with the interface they've come up with. One is due out before Christmas.
F-Secure are reporting, via their weblog, that they have discovered a new Trojan targeting Series 60 phones. The Tojan deletes key system files (which will prevent some phone restarting) and write a random password to the MMC (so you can not access data on the MMC). The Trojan pretends to be a pirated copy application (InstantSIS). As F-Secure state: 'Cardblock.A is not a threat to people who don't use pirate copied software'.
Two events co-incided this week which are relevant to anyone interested in Symbian gaming, or gaming in general. The first was Gerard Wiener (head of Nokia's Games division including N-Gage) having a meeting with Japanese games publishing giant Square Enix at the CTIA mobile entertainment trade fair in San Francisco. The second was an interview with Yoichi Wada, the President of Square Enix. During the interview, Wada stated that the future of gaming lay with online games both on PCs and on mobile phones. He said they wanted to get away from the current console-controlled games market and go to a model where software was king. He explained Square Enix's plans to expand into the mobile phone online world. Even more tantalisingly, their mobile phone Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest games, already released on Japanese FOMA Symbian phones, would be released in North America and Europe towards the end of 2006. That would of course be just in time for the Nokia Next Gen MoGaSo's first Christmas.
Audible, provider of electronic audio books and other audio content, will soon make a solution available for Series 60 phones. The AudibleAir service for Series 60 is being demoed at CITA. AudibleAir will allow you to download Audible content over the air.
One of the more popular applications on both the online stores and bundled with the device is Quickoffice. Craig Senick has been with the product for many years, and All About Symbian sat down with him to find out more about the Office Suite.
Who needs all the glamour and expense of European racing when you have American Racing 3D from MH Soft bringing you the whole Stock Car experience, from road courses to monster ovals. 7 tracks, 11 opponents and 6 cars to choose from should be enough to keep anyone going round in circles.
