Nokia's N-Gage Service To End After 2010 44
negRo_slim writes "Who knew the N-Gage was still kicking? Well apparently it still is — however, it looks like 2010 will be the end. From the announcement: 'While the N-Gage.com site together with the N-Gage Arena and other community features will remain in operation throughout 2010, the Ovi Store will be the new central place for all the mobile games that Nokia and other publishers offer from this point forward. We will no longer publish new games for the N-Gage platform.'"
No big deal (Score:5, Interesting)
This is not big news. It is more of a re-branding anyway.
Nokia is just consolidating all their online offerings under the Ovi brand, in hopes of competing with efforts like Apple's App Store.
Now there will be one single place for Nokia users to buy apps, be they games or regular apps. Ovi also covers maps, photo sharing...
Again, nothing to see here. What they currently call the N-Gage platform is not that taco-phone, it is the online selling place and the networking support for games. The new ones will use the service under the new name. That's all.
Sidetalkin' (Score:1, Interesting)
Nooo, do not say it looks like 2010 will be the end of sidetalkin' [sidetalkin.com]!!1!
Not surprised (Score:3, Interesting)
Only big companies were allowed to make N-Gage games, and that shut out the indies. Also, they tried to implement a very complicated platform on very slow and buggy devices (like the N73).
Even EA critisied the N-gage platform: http://www.t3.com/news/nokia-n-gage-summit-ea-point-out-the-problems?=37094 [t3.com]
Re:Not surprised (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:If only.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Not only that, but some apps that would be compatible with your phone simply do not show up. It is slow as dead (at least it was last time I tried).
Also, what with having to login again every time you click on a link to other part of Ovi? If you go from store to photos, maps, or any other subdomain, you have to login again. Even though it's the same credentials.
I do think they finally moved in the right direction with the current efforts, but there is still a looooong way to go to make the Ovi "experience" anywhere near useful.