Usually we do not cover mobile phones but VNUNet seems to have a new interesting story that Nokia is stepping away from its N-Gage phone/handheld gaming device. "N-Gage is still being sold but it was not a success in the sense of developing a new category," said Antti Vasara, Nokia's vice president for corporate strategy. "We learnt that people want to play games on all devices. As such we are integrating the gaming software into Series 60 phones." N-Gage devices will still be produced by primarily for the Chinese and Indian markets.

On November 19, gamers will begin competing in Nokia Game 2003, a 10-day interactive multimedia game competition that includes a series of challenges, turn-based role play games, as well as arcade-style action. Last year, Nokia Game registered a record number of gamers – over 1 million. Registration for Nokia Game 2003 has already begun, with capacity expanded to accommodate more participants than ever before. The top winners in each participating country will receive a Nokia N-Gage mobile game deck as a prize.

As typical with any new game platform launch, gamers across North America created and took part in activities in celebration of the N-Gage mobile game deck's October 7 on-sale date. Flash mobs were seen yesterday in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, and a mysterious N-Gage crop circle was discovered in Minnesota. Gamers also took to the street to perform street art and leave reminders that the N-Gage game deck would take gaming to the next level. And more festivities in celebration of the N-Gage game deck's availability are planned for the coming days.

Nokia today announced the ConnectCoder, N-Gage Mobile Game Deck Game Battle 2003, a competition for game developers across Europe, the United States and Canada to find the hottest game ideas that take advantage of the unique mobile online functionality of the Nokia N-Gage game deck. Helping to unleash the creative and innovative spirit of the game community, the competition runs until January 31, 2004.

Nokia, together with Electronic Arts today announced that NCAA Football 2004 will be developed for the Nokia N-Gage game deck. One of the best-selling titles from the EA SPORTS range, NCAA Football on the Nokia N-Gage game deck gives mobile quarterbacks the chance to lead their team to the championship anywhere, anytime. The first college football season of NCAA Football 2004 on the Nokia N-Gage game deck will focus on a range of unique mobile features, including multiplayer gameplay via Bluetooth wireless technology.

Nokia today announced mobile online elements for this year's Nokia Game at the fifth annual Nokia Totally Board event in Sevilla, Spain. Nokia Game 2003 is an interactive adventure provided by Nokia that will be played across 35 countries around the world in 10 languages.

The Nokia N-Gage game deck is an innovative mobile device that is creating an entirely new market for the games industry. Built for active and hardcore gamers, the Nokia N-Gage is the first mobile and connected game deck to feature online high-quality 3D multiplayer gameplay over Bluetooth and GPRS... Today we have some new screens from following titles:

• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater
• Red Faction
• MotoGP
• Marcel Desailly ProSoccer
• Rayman 3
• Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell
• Virtua Tennis
• MLB Slam!

Nokia today announced an agreement with Electronic Arts (EA) to deliver select EA titles for the highly anticipated Nokia N-Gage platform. Beginning this year for the holiday season, EA will deliver some of its leading game titles for the Nokia N-Gage, the world's first mobile and connected game deck that will be available globally on October 7, 2003.

Nokia Corp. is aiming its N-Gage gaming console at a different and potentially larger market than that of the likes of Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s GameBoy, the head of the Finnish company's entertainment and media arm said Wednesday.

"GameBoy is for 10-year-olds. If you're 20 or 25 years old, it's probably not a good idea to draw a GameBoy out of your pocket on a Friday night in a public space," Ilkka Raiskinen said.

Raiskinen said this older audience, targeted by Nokia's hand-held game-and- cellphone-in-one, presents a "bigger opportunity."

Last week we revealed that Nokia was working on a new handheld console and today Activision, Inc. confirmed that the company plans to support Nokia's highly anticipated N-Gage platform. Activision also confirmed that it expects to work closely with Nokia on developing games that would support the platform at launch. Starting to sound exciting indeed!