Summary
Nokia has shuttered their second attempt at making their own gaming platform in favor of building their own version of iTunes.
It's a shift in strategy. N-Gage was directed at Nintendo. Their new Ovi store is following Apple. Consumers won't miss N-Gage, as it never caught on. Nokia is still struggling to redefine itself.
Analysis
N-Gage was Nokia's attempt at doing a gaming platform. The first version in 2003 was a telephone/handheld gaming device. This was their attempt to enter the handheld gaming market, which at the time was dominated by Nintendo's Gameboy. It wasn't a success; articles at the time discussed how the hardware was awkward to use and the cost of the device plus the cell service was too much. I think it was also a major misread of the target market.
Nintendo's Gameboy is an inexpensive, rugged system for kids. It's the Spongebob Squarepants audience. Making a cell phone/gaming device for them was a complete misread.
In 2005, Nokia announced that N-Gage would return as a software service available for all its higher-end handsets. It was finally made available to the public in early 2008, and was available both as a download for existing handsets and came pre-installed on new ones. A handful of games was released. Numbers haven't been easily available, but obviously the decision to close the service down after about a year and a half, in favor of yet another iTunes clone, tells us what we need to know.
This is another chapter in Nokia's struggle to find a new direction for the company. A couple of years ago, they announced that software services were becoming more important than devices, and reorganized the company around that mission. While this shift is happening, they're losing market share in handset sales.
