Nokia Basically Shutters The N-Gage
The N-Gage never took-off like Nokia had hoped, or like later devices such as the Nintendo DS. The reasons for N-Gage’s failure are an amalgam of bad pricing decisions, poor market channels, a weak developer community, and possibly a device that few wanted. Despite this, I still must offer kudos to Nokia for extending the effort. It’s just this kind of innovation that occasionally produces tomorrows winner products. But after two years, Nokia has finally admitted defeat, and is de-emphasizing its efforts in the dedicated gaming device sector to re-focus in the “hotter” mobile music and mobile video sectors. Nokia plans to roll additional gaming functionality into the platform that drives the majority of its phones, targeting casual gamers instead of dedicated players, leaving that market to Sony and Nintendo, who own it anyway.
