The podcast is 27 minutes long and features Jon Jordan of Pocketgamer.co.uk interviewing Nokia's Jaakko Kaidesoja, Gregg Sauter and Mark Ollila.
Here's a brief summary of the most important points made by Nokia:
- There will be no "N-Gage 2" separate device, the Next Gen N-Gage is a platform "across the S60 device range".
- Nokia couldn't have made the Next Gen platform without the lessons it learned from the original N-Gage.
- Nokia looked at the reasons why people didn't buy the original N-Gage. The main problem in the long term was that most people didn't want to sacrifice phone features for the sake of gaming. The implication was that the N-Gage would have always failed to make headway as the whole concept of a single gaming handset was flawed. This is why they're now moving the games to a general platform across a range of handsets.
- The platform "goes live" this Autumn, but many of the devices will already be in people's hands because compatible phones are already on sale. There will be an instant userbase the moment the platform launches.
- The platform will not necessarily support every S60 3rd Edition model, however Nokia's "target is to cover as many as possible". They currently estimate that 5 to 7 compatible devices will already be on sale when the platform goes live.
- The platform will run on S60 3rd Edition.
- Development will be entirely in C++.
- The platform will be very community-oriented, with a very easy-to-use interface.
- Both phone network operators and third-party publishers will be able to distribute games through the platform.
- There's a long roadmap of features and functionality, more features will be added over time.
- There will be both casual and hardcore games for the platform, sometimes from the same publishers.
- Nokia want the community aspect to be as open as possible, and is currently negotiating with third party game publishers over integrating the N-Gage player community with the publishers' own player communities.
- There are "possibilities" of expanding the games platform to non-Nokia S60 3rd Edition handsets, but at first it will only be on Nokia S60s.
- Not all compatible devices will have 3D hardware, some games will use 3D chips but others won't need them.
- There will be integration with other phone features, for example games will be able to access the user's music tracks stored on the phone.
- Nokia's approach is not walled garden, they will try to make community and distribution as open as possible.
- The "N-Gage" brand was kept because of the existing fanbase (the original N-Gage and QD sold over 2 million units), and because of non-fans who don't care what the platform is called.
- The point of platform is to allow compatible devices to be personal to the player, the player will be able to choose a phone that suits them personally. People won't have to use exactly the same device in order to play together.