Nokia’s long-awaited(and - IMHO - too late) N-Gage First Access was initially released for the N81 only. However, an Italian comrade quickly managed to hack it onto his N95 8GB. This caused other users to play around, and ended in Symbian-Freak forum users posting a modified install file.
I tried installing this file on my N71, and got loads of incompatibility warnings in the install process - however, the application has installed itself a-ok and runs(slowly). After installing PiPS manually(and setting up the connection settings correctly), I was able to register an account:
However, downloading some game demos still ends with an error message - others download just fine:
Unfortunately, the games I downloaded refused to start(IMHO a surefire sign of a device type/OS version check):
Here’s a small video showing my N71 working its way through some N-Gage First Access screens:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7576982897621281403
Nokia’s announcement not to support older S60v3 devices seems utter bullshit - my N71 is a lot older, but still manages to tackle most of N-Gage First Access without any major problems. Anyways, I am pretty sure that this incarnation of N-Gage will go down the drain just like the last one did - our friends at Nokia’s still don’t understand their position in the mobile gaming market.
Let’s all say it together: folks, you are NOT Nintendo. You are late to the market, your devices are weaker than dedicated gaming machines, and your games aren’t as big-name. You need each and every user possible in order to make the platform attractive - isolating owners of S60v3 devices without FP1 is the single-dumbest thing possible…
