Nokia is holding off on
mobile gaming for a few years and will not be building new versions of the
N-Gage gaming phone.
The company launched the N-Gage in 2003 but sales have been
disappointing and, according to the company's roadmap,
mobile gaming will not be a focus until 2007.
Nokia is concentrating on mobile music for the rest of this year, and next
year's main push will be on driving mobile television.
"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.
"We learnt that people want to play games on all devices. As such we are
integrating the gaming software into Series 60 phones."
Vasara explained that screen sizes and quality will be much more conducive to
mobile gaming systems by 2007.
The N-Gage was developed by a dedicated 'tiger team' at Nokia and was hailed
as the future of all games platforms at its launch. But Nokia only sold two
million units in three years, against projections of at
least six million.
A Nokia spokesman said that the company intends to continue producing N-Gage
devices primarily for the Chinese and Indian markets.
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