Nokia's Failed Gaming Console Was Designed To Look Like Goatse, The World's Worst Meme

Remember the N-Gage – oh wait, most don't even remember Nokia, let alone their attempt at revolutionizing the way people hate mobile games. The N-Gage was a small cellphone/video game chimera that sucked both as a gaming console and as a phone, but we know of at least one reason why it deserves some love: it nearly killed mobile gaming in its crib. Don't get us wrong; mobile gaming rocks and does one very important thing PC or Console gaming could never do, and that's sneakily making its way into our parents' phones and showing them that games are cool, actually. What sucks about mobile gaming are the bizarre monetization schemes that have taken over that subset of the industry, and the N-Gage did its worse to make games on a tiny screen look as unprofitable as possible. Most gamers know the console featured a bizarre aspect ratio that allowed for a gaming experience that's the equivalent of vertical video recording (interestingly, something our parents do love), and required the hassle of removing the battery in order to swap video game cartridges. What most don't know, however, is how its design was allegedly based on an infamous picture of a man stretching his butthole wide open.

Yes, let's take a look at the console:

And then either google “goatse” (don't do that) or look at a family-friendly reconstruction made in Quake.

Ugh, that's still pretty bad. We apologize. Let's try that again, shall we?

By looking at both side to side, it all checks out down to the ring finger being the D-pad. It's not a coincidence. An engineer who used to work for Nokia revealed that one of their designers really did do submit a console design based on the infamous meme. Why? Because he was a master comedian, obviously, but even though he did it as a joke, the higher-ups were like yeah, this is good, actually. When confronted with the idea of having to admit he based the design on the worst possible meme, he just put all the large stacks of phone-market-leader-Nokia into his Spongebob-shaped backpack and took off without telling anyone. The console's literal ass design played no known role in the console's demise.

Top Image: Nokia