Nokia declares the N-Gage dead

Nokia has admitted failure in its effort to create a mobile gaming system with the Nokia N-Gage.

"N-Gage is still being sold but it was not a success in the sense of developing a new category," said Antti Vasara, Nokia's vice president for corporate strategy on vnunet.com.

The mobile phone with a heavy emphasis on gaming was launched in 2003, but sales have disappointed. Gaming is no longer an item on Nokia's product roadmap until 2007. The new Walhalla, according to the Finish manufacturer is actually mobile music and television.

Success in that space isn't assured either. Convergence is a fine art that few have mastered. The big question is in the marketing: is a the N-Gage a mobile phone with a gaming feature, or a gaming console with mobile phone features? And in either case neither feature is allowed to under perform. Sealing the N-Gage's faith, it turned out to be a poor phone and a mediocre gaming platform.

The same question has caused the Motorola Rokr (aka iTunes phone) to dissapoint. Although here is was perfectly clear that we were dealing with a phone with music capabilities, Motorola launched a marketing campaign portraying it as a music device.