GC 2008: Nokia keen for more cross-platform N-Gage games

The cross-platform features showcased in Nokia's Reset Generation could be used in future N-Gage games, according to Nokia's Ari Tulla.

"For now it's a great test, and it's not easy to do by any means," he says. "But we are working and learning to see how we can implement the same sort of approach in different genres. Personally, I think it can fit in many different games."

Besides the sort of connectivity seen in Reset Generation, Nokia is keen to innovate in the area of game controls too, says Tulla. "If you use ten buttons for a game, it will be difficult for the more casual gamers," he says.

"So we are looking at how you can use the camera, and also accelerometers. We've seen a lot of that happening lately on Apple's side, and we think it's going to be something interesting that will take games in new directions."

There have been times in the past when Nokia execs refused to even refer to the iPhone by name, but that's not something that afflicts the current N-Gage team. Tulla thinks the hoo-ha around iPhone gaming could benefit N-Gage, too.

"It's good to have a market where there is more talk about mobile games, and where a lot of it is about different companies," he says. "That's a good thing for all of us, as it elevates the whole topic in the minds of consumers."

Tulla thinks Reset Generation is proving a key tool in building awareness of N-Gage specifically though, not least in the US, where the Nseries handsets required to run it aren't as popular as here in Europe.

Is Reset Generation going to sell millions more Nokia phones in the States? Possibly not, but thanks to its web and Facebook integration, there's certainly a buzz around N-Gage on that side of the Atlantic.

One concern about N-Gage right now is the gap in ambition between Nokia's firstparty games, and the titles released by other publishers. The former have certainly been bigger in terms of file-size, with the third-party games often looking like Java games given a graphical polish.

Is there a danger that this gap could continue? "Of course, for first-party, we are more keen on the platform, and we have built up a lot of experience with our developers," says Tulla.

"But if we can pull together something great like Reset Generation, and put it in the marketplace, others will look at it and say, 'How can we do that?'. It won't take too long to get those learnings across the publishers and developers. I don't see [the gap] as a problem in the longer term."

Tulla says that Nokia's recently-launched ** site is providing valuable feedback for how the N-Gage platform should evolve – apparently Russian-language support has been bumped up the list of priorities, while users are also asking for accelerometer support and more sophisticated community elements.

One interesting area is how Nokia plans to mash up N-Gage with other parts of its Ovi suite of services, such as Maps and its various music services. The idea of using local map data to auto-generate game levels was mooted by Nokia at the recent Develop Mobile conference, for example.

"There's a lot of exciting stuff happening there," says Tulla. "We are working and talking about those other services. For example, music games are suddenly huge on console, and now we have a lot of music-related things happening in Nokia, so how can we put those things together with N-Gage?"

He's also got views on maps, following Nokia's acquisition of digital mapping firm Navteq. "With Google Maps, if you use them, you can't make a solution or service that has a fee," he says. "You have to make it free. But now that we own the maps, that's not the case any more, so we can leverage them in games."

How about shaking up the pricing model of N-Gage games a bit? Currently, they're offered as free demos, and then players choose whether to buy them outright or pay for a certain number of days' play. Is there room to tinker about with that even more?

"I can't say that we are doing it right now, but we are definitely looking at it," says Tulla. "There's a lot of things that could be done. If you look at markets like Korea, micro-transactions are very interesting. And of course there is always advertising, but that can be intrusive, and something that players don't really want to see."

And even more innovative ideas, like taking a leaf out of Nokia's own book, and its plans to offer 'free' music to handset buyers under the Comes With Music scheme? Tulla laughs. "Today, as you know, there is a game inside almost all the devices, and people have grown to expect that," he says. "That's also one thing that can be played around with, so yes. It's an interesting point."

We'll have more from Tulla tomorrow over on PocketGamer.biz, focusing on Nokia's Innovation Challenge competition for developers.