Nokia announces the end of its N-Gage gaming service
By Laura June 
posted Oct 30th 2009 1:31PM
posted Oct 30th 2009 1:31PM
Nokia has officially announced that it will put an end to its problem-plagued N-Gage gaming service, integrating it into its Ovi Store. The move isn't really a shocker, and while Nokia has confirmed that no further games will be published, it's also said that it will continue to sell currently available games in the Ovi Store (as of today) until the end of September 2010. The N-Gage website, which holds the Arena and community boards, will also continue until that time. Nokia says that any already purchased games will continue to run on the mobile device, but that any connected community features will be non-functional come 2010.
[Via Pocket Lint]
[Via Pocket Lint]
Good riddance.
Wow I thought this died years ago. I knew it was a dumb idea the first time I heard of it.
It wasn't dumb it was just poorly executed. Ask Apple, they'll tell you all about it.
@Monica: The original N-Gage phone was killed, then the concept was resurrected as a gaming platform running on Symbian. I don't think it was ever clear why one would release an N-Gage game instead of a Symbian game.
I don't think this is a negative news. This is infact a step in the right direction, which Engadget is not acknowledging with their more negative statements.
What Nokia is doing here is they are making Ovi store a one-stop shop for everything including games.
So Games will still be available in future, but now any developer can develop games for Nokia phones, and those games won't require only N-series devices or selected capable devices to run N-gage.
This will widen the audience that developers can cater to for their games.
So again, this is a good move, considering there will be high end and fast phones coming in future from Nokia.
Again hands down to Engadget for not mentioning clearly in their article, but if you hit the link of pocketlint, you can see that the exact message in Nokia's words.
I second that comment.
About time.
Why, didn't these also NOT have a camera?
Oh... right, they did and that must be the reason for the non-success... :/
Funny, I thought it ended before it began.
Shows what I know.
It does show what you know, first of all, a lot of the commenters are confusing this with the old N-Gage phone, this is a service that was launched for N-Series phones very similar to the App Store but for games
Also without selling any subsidized N-Series phones in the US, not many us would know about it, but in Europe it had a decent following
It was a good idea this time around, the games if you look were pretty decent, many on par with what's on the iPhone (some of the first 3D iPhone games ports of N-Gage titles) and the N-series phones actually have buttons and d-pads
The problem was missing key markets like the US, and not making it more open similar to how iPhone is for indie developers, you kinda had to a company like EA or Gameloft to get in there, and then just generally not making as well known and advertised as the App Store, it was mostly upto the developers to get ads out for their games
So what you mean is, it never started.
Oh, ok.
@JohnTitor
The reason for me to say a total no no to n-gage games was its cheap quality and bad gaming experience.
I used the N-gage QD and still feel (with iphone on my hand) it was the best gaming mobile device i ever had. Though i used n80IE and n958GB with n-gage i never got that feeling.
Now comming to iphone.. iphone's visual effect on games are outstanding compared to ngage but still i miss the game thrill of n-gage QD
There seems to be some confusion over this N-Gage vs the original handheld...
Original N-Gage: Hybrid device that's a handheld console and GSM cellphone. Includes the original "taco" N-Gage and the N-Gage QD. Games came on MMC cards the way GBA games came on GBA cartridges. Failed miserably due to being GSM-only, expensive and Nintendo's monopoly on the handheld market via GBA that edged out Sega, Bandai and NeoGeo.
N-Gage 2.0: An on-demand download service for "N-Gage enabled" phones of various models. If a Nokia phone was N-Gage 2.0-capable then it could run the N-Gage 2.0 games. Similar to XBLA and WiiWare. Separate store than Nokia Ovi.
Now: Games sold through Ovi store rather than separate N-Gage 2.0 store. N-Gage 2.0 "certification" going away, apparently all Nokia models can run N-Gage 2.0 games if they're running the correct Symbian version.
@Kaushik
Well obviously while the 1st Gen N-Gage started out with a decent developer backing, the fact that N-Gage 2.0 was coming off the failed devices not many serious developers jumped on board, also having it run over multiple devices can be troubling, so to cater to the low-end devices you couldn't always use the high-end hardware (kind of a PC gaming effect). Even the iPhone is loaded with crap with some gems there that are actually playable more than a week, it's the same for NGage 2, I mean lets compare Metal Gear Solid for iPhone vs NGage;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kHXb6YhfxQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zOOaPQ4hiE
N-Gage was dead before it began.
Lol
I remember when I KINDA sorta wanted an N-gage phone when it came out...
than I got a gameboy advanced instead.
Come to think of it I haven't heard the term "N-gage" for at least 2 years
Honestly, glad to hear it's coming to an end
It's obsolete now that Ovi store is available.
Yeah. I mean that's what they actually say but Engadget appear to have missed that bit.
Wow, I'm not being sarcastic when I say that I didn't know N-Gage was still around.
Same here, I thought it had already closed.
I actually liked the Ngage platform...just way ahead of its time I guess. Gone the way of the Sega dreamcast.
This still exists? I thought this would have died out like 6 or 7 years ago since, ya know, nobody has one!
6-7 years? I'm pretty sure it was 4-5 year ago.
to clarify, it means the service, not the old N-gage phone. most of their current N series phones are also N-gage capable devices
didn't know it was still in use O.o
Attempt No. 3: FAILED
It's about time!
I wonder if iPhones 2 billion apps n games sold in first year has anything to do with this.
Nokia slowly but surely losing smartphone market share.
I assume its something to do with the whole idea of NGage for N series
DRM issues
Limited selection of games
Poor controls
Requires Set-up/installation
Competion
Cheap alternatives
Or it could be that there's no reason to have a separate channels for games and applications. It's being rolled into the Ovi Store.
:D ya that true.. looks like AppStore after effect
Even when I worked for Nokia and the N-Gage came out, I was like WTF is this?!? They have rock solid phones but I don't want a handheld gaming device with a crappy form factor.
uN-Gaged.
For everyone who found
unlimited joy in our
cell phone games and gave
kind words for N-Gage:
All best wishes to you. We
promise to make the Ovi
platform even better with
lots of titles for the best
entertainment on the go.
- Nokia
It's surprising N-Gadget works for Apple though.
I had the original device in 2004 :(
Good days.. RIP
Hold up? People are still *using* this?!! (This is like announcing the end of cassette tape production.)
But... but... how now will we get our sidetalking fix?!
RIP - legendary sidetalking
http://www.jesush.com/images/talking-3.jpg
The market announced the end of the NGage LONG ago...
it is a different n-gage, the former was n-gage as a cellphone and this is n-gage as a service.
Anyone for a taco salad?
Laura, care to put a bit of context in this news entry, please?
I'm a great fan of Nokia, but to me it was obvious fromt he start that N-Gage was going to fail. All the games were recycled Java and Symbian games which were re-used after as much as 3 years. In the later stages Nokia stopped making phones with HW graphics acceleration so it was obvious that accelerated games weren't coming to N-Gage and that was the final nail in N-Gage's coffin.
Well I guess my orginal N Gage phone is not a collector item and I think I still have one game. Any bids? Oh it is a GSM phone but sorry not 3g I do not think.
Why close one fail to focus on another fail ? Why not just ax both of them and start the hell over.
I loved the idea of Ngage. I just wish they had designed hardware that pushed it better with proper controls.
Now go ahead and end that failed OVI store, and end "nokia pc suite" start those over from scratch.
As far as I'm concerned, the N-Gage had 1 game - Pathway to Glory.