N-Gage

The N-Gage is a phone and a handheld game system developed by Nokia, announced on 4 November 2002 and released on 7 October 2003.

N-Gage attempted to lure gamers away from the Game Boy Advance by including telephone functionality. This was unsuccessful, partly because the buttons, designed for a telephone, were not well-suited for gaming. The original N-Gage was described as resembling a taco, which led to its mocking nickname "Taco phone".

Nokia introduced the N-Gage QD in 2004 as a redesign of the original "Classic" N-Gage, fixing widely criticized issues and design problems. However, the new model was unable to make an impact, and with only 2 million units sold in its two years, the N-Gage and its QD model were a commercial failure, unable to challenge their Nintendo rival.

The N-Gage was discontinued in November 2005, with Nokia moving its gaming capabilities onto selected Series 60 smartphones. This was announced as the N-Gage platform or "N-Gage 2.0" in 2007, carrying on the N-Gage name.

Release
With a launch price of US $299 (equivalent to $407 in 2018), the N-Gage was not commercially popular. In its first weeks of availability in the United States, it was outsold by the Game Boy Advance 100 to 1. Within 17 days of the deck's release, popular retailers GameStop and Electronics Boutique began offering $100 rebates on the deck's price.

Shortly after Release Nokia warned costumers to not use the battries do to phone explosions. In November 2003 the Pesident of Nokia announced that over 100 Games would be released in thenext 12 months.

In February 2004, with the N-Gage failing to make a major impact four months on, CEO Jorma Ollila claimed that the device would be given until 2005 to be judged whether it was a success or failure.

In January 2005, UK sales-tracking firm ChartTrack dropped the N-Gage from its regular ELSPA chart, commenting that "The N-Gage chart, though still produced, is of little interest to anyone. Sales of the machine and its software have failed to make any impact on the market at all." Although only directly reflective of the UK market, this was interpreted by some as a serious blow to the N-Gage as a viable gaming platform. Despite this, Nokia reaffirmed their commitment to the N-Gage as a platform, to the point where a new version of the hardware was rumored after GDC 2005.

February 2005 saw Nokia appoint Gerard Wiener, formerly of Sega Europe, to the post of Director and General Manager for Games at Nokia.[citation needed] Wiener steered Nokia away from looking at the N-Gage as primarily being a games console to "this is a mobile phone that is great for playing games on."[citation needed] In November 2005, Nokia admitted that the N-Gage failed, selling only one-third of the company's expectations. The product was discontinued from Western markets, but would continue to be marketed in India and parts of Asia. Nokia did continue N-Gage promotions at E3 2006.

The last game to be released in the U.S. for the system was Civilization in March 2006 according to Metacritic.In November 2006, Nokia released its last game for the N-Gage QD, combat racer Payload.

As of August 2007, it was estimated that Nokia had shipped more than two million N-Gage game decks. The "N-Gage" brand name still had a poor reputation within the gaming media and among the few consumers who recognized the N-Gage brand, due to the weakness of the system's first games and the original model's limitations. Nokia had more than 50 games available for the system.

Sales
There is some disagreement in sources about the actual number of N-Gage decks sold. Nokia initially claimed 400,000 sales in the first two weeks the deck was available. However, independent market research firms Chart-Track and Arcadia Research claimed that the N-Gage had sold only 5,000 decks in the United States in that time, and 800 decks in the UK. Critics suggested Nokia was counting the number of decks shipped to retailers, not the number actually purchased by consumers. Nokia later admitted this was the truth.

In 2004, Nokia claimed in a press release that it had shipped its millionth deck, represented as a company milestone despite falling short of the company's initial projection of six million decks by the end of 2004. However, this number shipped does not give a reliable picture of the actual sales of the deck. Nokia ultimately shipped 3 million N-Gage decks by 2007.

Other

 * In September 2003, Vienna got 12 Opel Zafari caps with build in N-Gage Systems