N-Gage cancelled.

Monday 28th November 2005 - 17:00


Gaming phone disconnected, plus Gates on the chance of beating Sony in the console wars, and new WoW test realm for you...now!



The N-Gage is no more. That is the news from Nokia who has just announced that the gaming phone will not appear in any new versions, before admitting it had been a failure.

'N-Gage is still being sold but it was not a success in the sense of developing a new category,' Nokia's VP of corporate strategy Antii Vasara told Vnunet. 'We learnt that people want to play games on all devices. As such we are integrating the gaming software into Series 60 phones.'

The support for the device will continue but Nokia has said that it will concentrate on smart phones and music or TV devices. It reckons that games on phones will be ready to make another leap in 2007 with the introduction of bigger screens.

Meanwhile, after calling the Xbox 360 'the hottest product we've ever had,' Bill Gates has said that the victor in the console wars won't be apparent until '07.

'We see ourselves having a higher share,' he said in an interview with Bloomberg. 'We're not going to name some magic number but we're out to give the best gaming experience. By the end of 2007, you'll have kind of a sense of how much did Microsoft increase its market share: dramatically, not so dramatically, did Sony mess up, what happened?'

So, is that the strategy - hope that Sony cocks things up? Mmmm...

Finally, Blizzard wants you to try out its new realm and is inviting you over to its new test area, The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj, containing new 20- and 40-player raid dungeons. Also included in the patch are linked Auction Houses and improved Battleground queues. What are you waiting for?