FirstAccess
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Nokia bringing N-Gage beta testing to an end, dishes out free game
Well, it looks like we're now one step closer to a full-fledged launch of Nokia's N-Gage First Access service, with the company announcing today that the beta testing phase will end on March 27th. As was announced before, that means all your scores and other data will be reset and, while you won't have to repurchase any games you've bought during the beta test, you will have to reinstall them when the final version launches. As a bonus for beta testers, however, Nokia is giving away a free copy of the upcoming Mile High Pinball game to anyone that completes a survey, along with 1,000 "community points." There's still no firm word on the rollout of the final version of the service, however, with Nokia only going so far as to say that it's coming in the "next few weeks."[Via All About Symbian]
Nokia rolls out N-Gage First Access to N81 users
The delayed, revamped N-Gage client still isn't ready for prime time, but the First Access preview service -- which is just a little bit more functional than the preview shipping on some Nseries devices already -- has finally launched. The service introduces a full suite of social gaming tools (though with compatibility officially limited to N81s for the moment, that's a very small social circle indeed) and lets users download several game demos; Nokia promises that the service will evolve and expand as it ramps up for a full-scale release, so don't get too down on the lack of content and community just yet. Oh, and just a word of warning, downloaders: your data will get reset prior to the full-scale launch, so don't get too attached to your high scores, k?[Via All About Symbian]
Nokia's N-Gage First Access delayed to 2008
We suppose it was just too good to be true, having a solid release window and target device for N-Gage, even if it was going to be merely in the form of a "First Access" test service. Nokia has been going over the service internally with about 1,000 testers, and has uncovered an "issue" that it needs to address, but wouldn't elaborate much further about the problem, other than that the games and service are supposedly working smoothly. That means Nokia won't be releasing First Access for N81 users this week as promised, but instead will wait until the new year to finally make its new push back into the gaming market. Don't worry Nokia, it's not like we've got anything else going on. [Via Pocket Gamer]
Nokia's N-Gage hits the N81 next week in pre-release form
It's a good time to be an N81 or N81 8GB user, since Nokia's got some pre-release versions of full N-Gage titles just for you as of next week. Nokia's hoping for some feedback with this "N-Gage First Access" setup, since the full service isn't quite ready to go yet. Of course, the N81 has game demos on it out of the box, but this time it'll have "exclusive access to the pre-release version of the N-Gage application and one or more N-Gage games!" They're certainly taking their own sweet time getting the relaunch of N-Gage ready, but given the failure of its first two iterations, perhaps we should be grateful Nokia's waiting to get it right this time. But seriously, hurry up already. [Via NokNok; thanks James B]
