Nokia holds fire on mobile gaming

Nokia is holding off on mobile gaming for a few years and will not be building new versions of the N-Gage gaming phone.

The company launched the N-Gage in 2003 but sales have been disappointing and, according to the company's roadmap, mobile gaming will not be a focus until 2007. 

Nokia is concentrating on mobile music for the rest of this year, and next year's main push will be on driving mobile television.

"N-Gage is still being sold but it was not a success in the sense of developing a new category," said Antti Vasara, Nokia's vice president for corporate strategy.

"We learnt that people want to play games on all devices. As such we are integrating the gaming software into Series 60 phones."

Vasara explained that screen sizes and quality will be much more conducive to mobile gaming systems by 2007.

The N-Gage was developed by a dedicated 'tiger team' at Nokia and was hailed as the future of all games platforms at its launch. But Nokia only sold two million units in three years, against projections of at least six million. 

A Nokia spokesman said that the company intends to continue producing N-Gage devices primarily for the Chinese and Indian markets.