Andre Yoskowitz
4 Apr 2008 18:39
After massive delays, Nokia's N-Gage service is finally up and ready for business, letting smartphone users download games.
"We are live! The games, the devices, and the community are all here for you to finally get your teeth into. There will be an official announcement on Monday, but for you, the N-Gage faithful we wanted to let you know we're up and running" read the official N-gage blog.
At launch, only owners of the Nokia N81 8GB, N81 SD, N82, N95, and N95 8GB phones will be able to use N-Gage, but more compatible models are coming, says the company.
Nokia also adds that there is huge interest for gaming on cell phones and interest keeps growing.
"We did a survey in England and 90 percent wanted to play games, but very few had actually bought a game for their phone," said Christophe Joyau, responsible for services at Nokia in Scandinavia. Joyau notes that mobile gaming has been a failure so far because "there is nowhere to try games, gaming experiences have been poor, and the games are difficult to use." Nokia hopes N-Gage will solve all these problems.
Despite a failed try at the service back in 2003, Nokia hopes to come back with a vengeance, a hearty lineup of games, and a bigger selection of compatible phones.