N-Game Unveiled by Nokia

Following two previous delays due to software testing, Nokia has announced the launch of its N-Game mobile gaming service.

The world's largest mobile telephone manufacturer, Nokia is hoping to energise the ailing portable gaming market and the new N-Game service is one of the cornerstones of the Finnish company's new Internet services strategy.

'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,' the Helsinki-based firm stated on its N-Gage blog.

Nokia, which made 40 percent of all the mobile telephones sold in the last quarter of 2007, is the first handset maker to make a major push into the content sector and has already opened the service to users of its top N95 model along with its N81, N81 8GB, N82 and the N95 8GB multimedia handsets. Analysts report that it has sold up to 15 million models so far and major games publishers such as Electronic Arts, Gameloft and Glu Mobile have already signed up for the new platform.

Nokia stated last month that around 25 titles would be available for N-Gage by the middle of the year with a similar number of titles unveiled during the second half of the year. The move should help the ailing mobile gaming market as it suffered an unexpected slump last year with many games developers and analysts pointing to telecommunication operators' lack of investment in marketing.