N-Gage service will shut down by the end of 2010

No new N-Gage games will be released, although users will be able buy existing games until the end of September 2010. The N-Gage community website will be available until the end of the year.

N-Gage had a difficult birth – an earlier version which launched in 2003 also failed to capture the market. In the future all games available to Nokia handset owners will be shifted to its apps store, Ovi Store.

“It’s much more convenient to have one place to get all your mobile games, and this it what Ovi Store provides,” said Nokia on the N-Gage blog.

“Mobile gaming is one of the most popular activities in the Ovi Store, with games being the second most downloaded category for premium content.”

People commenting on the blog were generally saddened by the news.

“Sorry to hear it, N-Gage was a pioneer in many ways,” posted a blog reader called Jo.

But not everybody was in mourning.

“I am so happy that we get into this point,” wrote Frax. “N-Gage2 was simply a joke…”

Nokia has recently taken a financial hit after sales dropped by one fifth in the last quarter.

The Finnish company made a net loss of 913m euros (£838m) between July and September 2009 – during the same period in 2008 it made a profit of 1.1bn euros. [BBC]

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