5:00 PM Phone maker shuts down mobile games service
November 2, 2009
5:00 PM -- The game's up for Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK)'s mobile games platform, N-Gage. The Finnish phone maker says it will shut the platform down in September 2010.
N-Gage was Nokia's mobile games service for certain Nokia handsets that was revamped and relaunched in April last year, and which featured multiplayer and social-networking elements. But all of that will be no more this time next year. Nokia will continue to sell games through its Ovi store, but it will no longer support the N-Gage platform from September 2010. (See Nokia N-Gages With Mobile Games and Nokia Stakes Claim on Services.)
Looking back, this move was foreshadowed when Nokia announced in April this year that it would streamline its services unit as part of a wider cost-cutting program. At that time, the company said part of the restructuring would involve selling all mobile games through Ovi. (See Nokia Shrinks Services, Cuts Jobs, Is Nokia's Ovi Finnish'd?, and Nokia Lays an Egg & Scrambles It Too!.)
Nokia will not publish new games for the N-Gage platform, and it will no longer ship new devices with the application pre-installed.
— Michelle Donegan, European Editor, Unstrung
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