Nokia & N-Gage -- the company's still 1.0

Dear me.

We’re all rooting for Nokia, we really are.

But consistently, it’s a total fook up. Clearly, there are some smart folks at the company, but these smart cookies don’t appear to be actually running the company.

Nokia, alas, is still stuck in its rubber-boot-manufacturing mindset.

If you’re an N-Gage customer (cue: groan), then Nokia are counting on the fact that you will only ever buy two devices from them.

Seriously, some chap, somewhere at N-Gage/Nokia has actually implemented the following policy.

There must be emails and project plans and memos and policy documents outlining this utter bollocks. And no one’s thought to actually correct it.

Here’s the problem.

You like N-Gage, right? You’ve got an N95 1st Edition (“Phone A”), for the sake of argument. You buy a game for your handset from N-Gage. Brilliant.

Buy another one, go on… aye. It’s wicked! Buy a few more. Before you know it you’ve got 7 games and a good few quid invested. All good.

And then you decide to upgrade to your N95 8GB (“Phone B”).

You can transfer your purchases from N-Gage to your new Phone B.

But… Lock that phone up.

Have it padlocked to your hand.

Don’t you dare lose/break/upgrade your handset.

If you lose the handset, if you drop it in a pint of proverbial beer, if you slap it against the wall by mistake… Your problem.

That’s right, Phone C — your NEXT Nokia handset doesn’t count.

Not at the moment. There’s no way — so I’m told by the All About Symbian geniuses of transferring your purchases to your next device.

Stupid.

Ridiculous.

1.0.

You really have to wonder how a behemoth like Nokia and their darling, N-Gage, is going to cope in this new mobile order that’s upon us. When you can one-click upgrade or restore your iPhone in triliseconds, this sort of thing isn’t going to wash with Nokia fans.

Let’s face it, if you’re serious enough to buy an N-Gage game — i.e. you’re THAT much of a Nokia fan… you’re not going to be happy.

Expect news from Nokia/N-Gage/Someone’s Mate From The Pub about this, at some point, once the Geniuses in Helsinki have evolved into the real world.