N-Gage Friday: Festive Feature or Here To Stay?
Published by Ewan Spence at 11:51 GMT, December 27th 2008
What happens when you have regular releases, and everyone expects a game on a certain day? You have a good feeling building around your platform. Will Nokia continue the regularity of the N-Gage game releases in 2009? Ewan think aloud on what could happen in the New Year.
But my point is this. The last few N-Gage game releases have all happened on a Friday, and they've been equally spaced out, one every seven days. That has built up a certain amount of anticipation. Throughout December the question has no longer been "when is the next N-Gage title coming out," but "what N-Gage title is coming out on Friday." One of the simplest goals of marketing is to build a sense of expectation and a demand for a product. By having a regular release schedule, Nokia have created a small patch of confidence in the N-Gage.
Read the full article here.
Categories: Software, Editorial Thoughts
Platforms: N-Gage, S60 3rd Edition, N-Gage
News Discussion
Tzer2
According to the official blog they're having a bit of a break from new releases at the beginning of the year but after that who knows...
Presumably the third party release schedules depend on the userbase, publishers tend to want to wait until a platform has a good audience before releasing a title. The Christmas sales figures of compatible phones would be a big factor, as would bringing N-Gage to potentially big-selling devices like the 5800 and N97.
But having a new game every Friday (or Monday) would be a good idea, it's worked well on Nintendo's Virtual Console for example. Perhaps Ewan's earlier suggestion of including cheaper less complex S60 or Java games would be a good way of filling gaps between major releases.
Another good thing would be some kind of optional indicator on the N-Gage icon to let people know about new releases. Maybe the icon could change colour when a new game is out? Alternatively (and perhaps technically easier to do) would be an automated SMS service that sends you a text when a new title is released, and which could automatically take you to the N-Gage app if required.
Emo185
actually games never really came out on fridays, they came out on Thursday (late in night) or Late Tuesday evening. Just recently they have been released on Tuesdays (which is the normal release days. for DVDs, Blu-Rays and Games in USA.
Every system has a break in releasing games, just look at the month for December and January on 360, PC and PS2 - theres probably bout 1 game coming out the entire month, but nowbody complains coz they had a good fill in november, the N-Gage did the same but spaced it over November and December.
In my opinion they should release a game every 2 weeks, that way u know if u dont like this game in 2 weeks time another game you might like will be out. Plus it gives ppl chance to finish the game, but being thrown onto the next (thats the problem im having atm, so many games so little time :P)
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