The long awaited Star Wars: The Force Unleashed game has arrived not just on consoles but for the Nokia N-Gage and iPhone. Sadly, PC gamers will not likely see a port of the game for their platform.

On the plus side (for loyal N-Gage gamers), early reviews for the the N-Gage version of Star Wars:TFU have been generally positive. After going through the game myself, it certainly surpassed my expectations of a mobile game with good graphics, fun gameplay and the feeling that the developers put real effort into ensuring the game was more than a stripped-down port of the console version.

But where is Nokia heading with the N-Gage platform? Has it really any chance to succeed or will it just be a doomed niche with the added burden of an embarrassing past – N-Gage taco phones, anyone? Speaking with Nokia APAC reps at a blogger preview of upcoming titles, Nokia has learned from the earlier N-Gage disaster and is no longer attempting to wrest handheld dominion from Sony or Nintendo. Instead, N-Gage is going to be a platform to offer quality entertainment to Nokia N-series phone owners and Nokia is willing to invest the resources needed to satisfy the N-Gage player base.

Take, for instance, the N-Gage site and services being integrated into the Ovi site’s home page as well as the work put into such mediums as blogs and forums to keep N-Gage players interested. Contests and special player events are held on a regular basis to motivate players to compete in the N-Gage arena.

But that surely wouldn’t be enough to keep players motivated, would it? The key to any platform’s success is always the games. On that front, Nokia’s managed to score titles from established game companies besides LucasArts – it just recently signed up with Capcom to bring the Resident Evil franchise to the N-Gage. Other well-known titles such as Prince of Persia, Crash Bandicoot and Metal Gear Solid will also make their N-Gage appearances.

The biggest challenge Nokia might see would be in North America where it has yet to grab a significant foothold in the market, due to a tenuous relationship with mobile carriers. There, its biggest rival is Apple with its iPhone. But Nokia owes a debt to Apple as well. Never before has there been such a surge in demand for mobile applications, those applications including games. All that thanks to Apple’s App Store.

With the decent titles the N-Gage already has on board, the challenge now for Nokia is to more firmly establish the platform as the one to beat. Probably the best thing it can do right now is to keep those games coming, and coming fast!

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Entry was posted on Saturday, September 20th, 2008 at 4:53 pm under Opinion.

Read more entries by Erna Mahyuni.
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