30 October 2009

Second Version Of N-Gage Platform
Will Die A Quiet Death Just Like Its Predecessor

Nokia has finally and officially confirmed persistent rumours that widely-hyped but poor-selling 2nd version of N-Gage platform will die a quiet death just like its predecessor as it failed to live up to Nokia's and consumers expectations.

Nokia's online gaming service, opened last year, never moved beyond a niche audience and therefore it will closed next year, acknowledging failure in its first major services offering.

"N-Gage games will be purchasable until the end of September 2010. While the N-Gage.com site together with the N-Gage Arena and other community features will remain in operation throughout 2010, the Ovi Store will be the new central place for all the mobile games that Nokia and other publishers offer from this point forward. We will no longer publish new games for the N-Gage platform."

N-Gage Arena will remain in operation throughout 2010 and players can e.g. keep posting their high scores until then. We understand that people value the ability to manage their games and communicate about them, and we are working on offering such community elements through Ovi.

Games publishers are free to use community features of their choosing in their apps, the feature set is not defined by Nokia. Social Networking applications are some of the most downloaded on Ovi Store, emphasing the power of connecting people.

Nokia says that mobile gaming is already the second most-popular category in the Ovi Store, and maintaining two separate storefronts (N-Gage and the Ovi Store) didn’t make any sense. Currently, they have more than a thousand games available in Ovi Store supported by 100 Nokia device models and are growing the platform and portfolio as quickly as possible.

Why doesn’t Nokia keep N-Gage
as a separate gaming platform?

As mobile gaming evolves and begins to encompass social gaming, we want to offer one store front with an even broader portfolio of games – games for everyone. It’s much more convenient to have one place to get all your mobile games, and this it what Ovi Store https://store.ovi.com/games provides.

Mobile gaming is one of the most popular activities in the Ovi Store, with games being the #2 most downloaded category for premium content. And besides having all mobile games in one place, people can access other services like Mail, Maps, Music and many more via www.ovi.com.