How Engaging is N-Gage?

The N-Gage service officially launched in April of 2008 and was in a beta phase for some time. Currently there are 12 devices that are fully N-Gage compliant (with another 7 announced) and near the end of 2008 is when they started actually embedding the N-Gage application into handsets.

N-Gage has grown into a full-fledged gaming network. If it helps, you might think of it as Nokia’s Xbox LIVE or Playstation Network with user profiles, gamer points, buddy lists and more. There are regularly scheduled live chat events, a blog, discussion forums and more. A full-featured, online community centering around mobile gaming on Nokia handsets. So you can understand the comparison to the major console networks which are essentially the same thing for their specific platforms.

N-Gage is a major mobile gaming force to be reckoned with. They have sales in over 200 countries and partnerships with over 70 network operators in 20 countries to include billing options, virtual currency and global credit cards. N-Gage is focusing on high-end mobile gaming and so there have only been 29 games released because quality is key. However, they only focus on games.

What’s Ovi on the Horizon?

Ovi is the Nokia umbrella brand for services which include maps, Ovi Share for photo and movie sharing, etc. Ovi Store is a dedicated store for content such as ring tones, games, N-Gage games, videos etc). It also supplies the ability to share your stuff with your friends and family from your compatible Nokia Handset or computer. It’s almost like Nokia’s answer to the Apple App Store combined with Flickr or something. Of course they might disagree with that but the mobile handset market is certainly heating up in regards to app availability and expandability of function and so they couldn’t not have a store, especially with the robustness of the S60 and S40 OSes.