What happened to the mobile phone industry?

Yesterday I wrote a writeup about Nokias new phone, the Nokia 3310, and when I read about it I was chocked. I thought the Nokia 3210 was bad. Phones are more and more becomming the new gamegear.

Once upon a time, phones were used as effective communication devices and with them you could reach people all over the world. Today phones are expensive little colorful boxes that you can play a game in two colors where you're controlling a little snake (a 3 pixel wide line) that grows longer and longer as you touch little boxes. FYI, there are actually better games out there. Go home, to your dads PC or whatever, find some nice sharewaregames on the internet. There are lot's and lot's of games with more than 2 colors... yes... that's right, more than 2 colors. You can even buy games for a much cheaper price than your little box you like to call "celluar phone", with millions of colors, 3d graphics, multiplayer support and so on. No but seriously, what the hell is going on? A friend of mine just bought a Nokia 3210. The day after he bought it he called me, being very happy and very proud that he just beat my record in snake. So? I use my (Nokia 5110) to call phonecalls when I'm out (rarely happends btw), send SMS messages, not to play stupid games, no... I use my PC to play stupid games, and they're a hell lot more fun than the games the uber haxors within Nokia has managed to develop. What's next? Eventually, Nokia will disable all abilities to dial your friends, send messages, call 911 and so forth and transform the phones into handheld gaming devices, packed with games and sell them for the same price and all humans (some won't even notice) will be totally isolated from eachother and sitting in front of their little 48x84 screens and trying to take as many boxes as possible. No, but seriously WHAT is going on?

Here's a quote from Nokias hompage about their new evil invention:

"Mobile gaming is simply electrifying with the Nokia 3310. The new vibra shock feature makes the phone vibrate at critical moments in gameplay - so you'll know when you've been blasted by aliens in the cool Space Impact game, or when you hit the walls in Snake II! Of course, if your prefer more sedate action, there is always Bantumi and Pairs II. "

Simply electrifying? The new vibra shock!? critical moments in gameplay?!?! This sounds like the description of the new Playstation 2 controller than a description of a "communication device"!

Start making real phones again dammit, or I'll get really mad!

Like it or not, the youth market is really important. The youth have money. The ditzy features of Nokia, like downloading new logos, picture messages and ringtones are things that make your phone stand out from the crowd. The youth market want an individual phone.

Ericsson said from the get-go that only businessmen wanted cellphones, and they are paying the price for that now. That's why they want to make a new line of phones with Sony, since the two companies complete each others strong sides.

On a side not, Nokia makes excellent work phones like 6210 which I have. It's strong, has a huuuuge phone book, and a working calendar that syncronizes with my desktop calendar. WAP sucks, however.

What I want to know is, What happened to E2? Why is nonsense like this being cooled?
What's next? Eventually, Nokia will disable all abilities to dial your friends, send messages, call 911 and so forth and transform the phones into handheld gaming devices, packed with games and sell them for the same price and all humans (some won't even notice) will be totally isolated from eachother and sitting in front of their little 48x84 screens and trying to take as many boxes as possible.

• Quote: "Once upon a time, phones were used as effective communication devices and with them you could reach people all over the world"
• Retort: Stop playing Snake long enough to mash those little numbered keys with a ten-digit Sequence and you'll find that a mobile phone is still quite an effective communication device.
• Quote: "FYI, there are actually better games out there. Go home, to your dads PC or whatever, find some nice sharewaregames on the internet. There are lot's and lot's of games with more than 2 colors... yes... that's right, more than 2 colors. You can even buy games for a much cheaper price than your little box you like to call "celluar phone", "
• Retort: Now we're getting somewhere. Dude, it's not a GameBoy. These games may well appeal to the all-important pre-teen market, but nobody buys a phone based on the games it has. Also, the reason people like to call that "little box" a "cellular phone" is simple; they recognise that the main function of the device is to facilitate telephonic communication via a cellular wireless network. We call these magical things "phones".
• Quote: "What's next? Eventually, Nokia will disable all abilities to dial your friends, send messages, call 911 and so forth and transform the phones into handheld gaming devices, packed with games and sell them for the same price"
• Retort: Not a good business model for a company whose target market comprises mostly of people who use their cell phone as a phone. FYI: Nintendo pretty much sewed up the handheld game console market some time back. Gameboy's have a wider selection of better games, the console thingy is cheaper and, hey, you don't have to pay a monthly fee to Sprint/Verizon etc.
• Quote: "The mobile phone industry have realized something important. Well, at least Nokia has. Nokia went for the youth market. Ericsson went for the buisness marked. Nokia is now the world leader in mobile telecommunication, Ericsson struggles with poor results."
• Retort: True, up to a point. The reason that Nokia is doing so much better than Ericcson, Motorola, Sony, Siemens and, lets see - oh yeah: everybody, is that they make cell phones that are stylish, light, have good performance and are easy to use. Nokia also targetted the market in segments - "youth", "business" etc. There's a lot of people aged 20+ using their phones and most aren't bothered about the games. Ericcson and Motorola are suffering because of corporate inertia and complacency.
• Quote: "Like it or not, the youth market is really important. The youth have money. "
• Retort: Again, I agree with this sentiment. The youth market is important - young people are "early adopters" of new technology. It's their parents that have the money, though.
• Quote: "Phones are the latest Fashion Accesory....but they won't last forever"
• Retort: I'm sure they'll turn out to be just a faddish as televisions, cars, refrigerators, electricity and, oh yeah, phones.
• Quote: "What I want to know is, What happened to E2? Why is nonsense like this being cooled? "
• Retort: I agree