The BAFTA Video Game Awards 2006 took place last night and were sponsored by Nokia N-Gage. As well as sponsoring the overall event, N-Gage sponsored the Gameplay Award and The Gamers' Award (which was voted for by members of the public). There's a list of the winners here, and photos from the event here.

So, is this significant news for Symbian users, considering there were no Symbian games even nominated for awards this year? Maybe.

It shows that Nokia's still putting money into their N-Gage brand so they're definitely not pulling out of gaming any time soon, despite recently discontinuing of the current generation of hardware (the N-Gage and N-Gage QD) and releasing the final current gen game (Payload). It also indicates they might well use the N-Gage name on the next generation gaming solution they're about to launch in a few months time.

The continued use of the name would be a double-edged sword: in its favour it would allow the relatively small existing userbase of N-Gage or QD owners to see it as a clear upgrade route, but on the other it would cause tremendous difficulties getting support from the gaming and technology press. The press have generally been withering in their coverage of N-Gage ever since its disastrous launch in 2003, and failed to give much quarter to the system ever since despite a slew of well-reviewed exclusive titles in 2004 and 2005.