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Nokia's N-Gage game system finally ready for smartphones

By Jacqueline Emigh | Published April 3, 2008, 5:15 PM

Although the announcement won't go out until next week, Nokia's retooled N-Gage mobile gaming system for smartphones has finally reached its full release.

"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," according to a posting on Nokia's N-Gage blog site.

The readiness of N-Gage for smartphones has been a long time coming. Nokia first rolled out N-Gage back in 2003 as a cell phone-enabled competitor to Game Boy Advance. But the dedicated device was largely a flop, as it was neither a very good game device nor a very good phone.

Then, in 2005, the mobile phone maker announced plans to move N-Gage gaming capabilities onto a series of smartphones with a software update.

A prerelease version of the smartphone gaming system has been available since early 2007 for five Nokia smarphones: the N95, N81, N81 8 GB, N82, and N95 GB.

But also last year, Nokia pushed back the full launch of the N-Gage smartphone system twice, each time pointing to delays in software testing.

Mobile gamers can now download the new N-Gage application. Nokia has also reopened the N-Gage Forums and live chats.

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Faustus
Apr 4, 2008 - 2:57 PM

WIll you be able to play that one good ngage game on it?

I think it was called sidetalk or something like that...

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Michael.Hatamoto
Apr 3, 2008 - 6:57 PM

Finally!

I remember seeing N-Gage demonstrated after it was first announced way back when, and thought it would be great technology ... or not.

I'm rather curious to hear what gamers think of the N-Gage application.

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