N-Gage games now available through Ovi Store
Published by Tzer2 at 1:29 UTC, June 18th 2009
Promised some time ago, N-Gage games have finally been made available through Ovi Store, in the form of free trials which can be unlocked into full versions through an in-game purchase or rental option. Although Ovi Store and N-Gage remain separate brands right now, it might make sense for Nokia to merge them, as discussed below.
Arguably, both Ovi Store and N-Gage would enjoy benefits from a merger.
- Ovi Store would provide a better overall sales infrastructure
- Ovi Store would provide hundreds (eventually thousands) of non-N-Gage games too
- N-Gage would provide exclusive criticially-acclaimed first party games which would not be available anywhere else
- N-Gage would provide online multiplayer gaming and community features, something Ovi Store currently lacks
- A merger might give Nokia the excuse it needs to replace and/or ditch the "N-Gage" brand, which has arguably held back their gaming platform rather than helped it. Just to make clear, this writer thinks the new gen N-Gage platform itself is great, but the name reminds people too much of the old gen N-Gage phone of 2003.
- A merger would make life much easier for third party publishers who want to release titles as both normal versions and N-Gage versions
However, it's very important to note that talk of a merger is speculation on our part. Nokia hasn't said what they will do in this regard, though they have expressed a general long term wish to unify their online sales channels.
Categories: Software, Editorial Thoughts, Games
Platforms: Series 60, N-Gage, S60 3rd Edition, N-Gage, S60 5th Edition
News Discussion
What do you mean by a merger, other than having them on sale on Ovi Store (as well)?
Hopefully the Ovi Store games categories will be amended to inlcude "N-Gage" so that its easier to find them (the assumption being that they are a bit higher standard generally, include more online play etc. so that one actually would want to screen them out from among the other games).
I don't know which phones they've deployed this on, and they may have only deployed this in certain countries, but CJ (on zomgitscj.com) managed to get these visible on his device in India.
By merging I mean that N-Gage games would be sold alongside other Ovi Store titles with N-Gage just referring to the Arena features rather than trying to be an entire separate platform. I would change the N-Gage name too, as it's misleading people into thinking these games only work on old gaming phones (you still see stock photos of the original N-gage used to accompany media coverage of the new platform).
I suspect Nokia's up to something as Ovi Mail's shortcut bar has a link to "games.ovi.com" which redirects to N-Gage.com. Will we see N-Gage renamed Ovi Games perhaps?