Nokia will not publish any new games for the N-Gage platform, according to a notice published on its blog, and it will not ship any new devices with the application pre-installed. Interested potential N-Gage buyers can still buy existing device with the app, but don’t expect anything shiny or new to bear the N-Gage name.

The N-Gage Arena will remain operational through 2010, but the N-Gage store will close in September of next year.

Mobile gaming evolves – Ovi Store is here [N-Gage Blog]

Its Vancouver studio was shuttered on June 30, nixing 100 or so jobs in the process. This decision seems to be part of Nokia’s March announcement to cut 1,700 company wide.

This N-Gage Design Studio was responsible for a large chunk of games for the first and second gen N-Gage systems as well as mobile phone games.

Nokia closes Canadian studio [Develop]

Ah, N-Gage. Such a…tarnished brand. You’d think after two failed N-Gage handsets and a “who cares?” launch of an N-Gage gaming portal, Nokia would just give up. But they’re not.

According to a statement released by the company yesterday, the number of registered users on the new service (think Xbox Live, but for phones) has “accelerated”. The reason? When the new N-Gage service was launched, it was an optional download. People didn’t care.

But now, it comes bundled and pre-installed on many of the company’s phones, meaning more people are willing to give it a shot. While refusing to disclose the number of actual, active users, the company did say that “almost” 1 million N-Gage accounts have been created and registered since the launch of the service.

Which will sound like complete rubbish to American readers, but remember: in many other countries (especially European ones), Nokia phones rule the mobile roost. The more handsets that come with N-Gage included, the more users Nokia will be able to attract to the service.

Nokia says gaming service take-up growing [Reuters]

The Nintendo DS is able to communicate wirelessly. So can Sony’s PlayStation Portable. Which is a problem for Wall Wireless, a company that claims they own a patent for said technology.

So Wall – who believe that they have “suffered monetary damages that are compensable … by no less than a reasonable royalty” as a result of companies using “their” technology – are taking Nintendo, Sony and Nokia to court.

At the heart of their complaints lies U.S. patent 6,640,086, which Wall were granted in 2003, and has the catchy title “Method and Apparatus for Creating and Distributing Real-Time Interactive Media Content Through Wireless Communication Networks and the Internet.”

What does that mean, exactly? The patent explains that it “pertains … to methods and systems that allow an operator to distribute messages having aural or visual content that is generated by the operator using handheld apparatuses such as mobile telephones.”

Named in the suit are the Nintendo DS, Sony PSP, Nokia’s N81, N82, N93 and N95 phones and the games Mario Kart, WipeOut Pulse and Reset Generation, all handheld games that feature wireless multiplayer.

Wall Wireless, we’ll tell you what we tell every no-name company that crawls out of the woodwork to try and pinch a dollar or two from more legitimate, successful companies: best of luck.

Sony, Nintendo, Nokia Sued Over Wireless [Edge]

Ghostwire is a ‘casual collection’ game that uses your phone’s camera to create a kind of Augmented Reality effect. You roam around the real world and use your phone to ’see’ ghosts that you can then collect in a sort of Ghostbusters-meets-Pokémon affair. Some ghosts will set riddles, others will provide clues and have elaborate back stories that must be unraveled.

Swedish developer A Different Game receives €40,000 in prize money. The runners up were Rhythm/Action game Jadestone and conspiracy ARG Eclipse.

Scary ghost game wins Nokia innovation award [The Guardian]

There are decent games out there, but there is a lot of dross – derivative, badly designed and poorly implemented.

Nokia want to change all that. They have been running the Mobile Games Innovation Challenge – a competition that asks developers to submit their most innovative game designs for – running under Symbian or Java on N-Gage or standard Nokia handsets

Being Nokia, they have a certain amount of hard cash to throw at the problem and have put up prize money worth €70,000 – that’s €40,000 for the winner, €20,000 for second place and €10,000 for the third runner up.

The ten finalists up for the big money are:

* Active Tecnologia e Consultoria Ltda. (Brazil) with Cinemarena – set in a movie theatre, controlling avatars on the big screen
* CreatePlayShare (India) with Ball – play any ball game on your mobile or even create your own new game
* Different Game (Sweden) with Ghost Wire – use your mobile device to communicate with ghosts
* Eclipse Interactive (UK) with Watchers – conspiracy adventure game that uses Nokia Maps and other real world tools to find locations
* Int13 (France) with Kweekies – augmented reality virtual pet game
* Jadestone (Sweden) and C4M (France) with Melokey – a music game for mobile devices where you learn to master songs and play them against other in-game characters to win the hearts of your fans
* LemonQuest (Spain) with Wave Pirates – turn into a pirate navigating the seven seas, looking for gold and glory
* Onur Yazilim (Turkey) with Comet Hunter – a 2-D shooting game which combines the excitement of shooting with natural sound effects made by players themselves
* Simlife (China) with XDancery – a music game where players can touch the screen, draw patterns on screen, shake the device or sing into it to hit the music tempo notes
* TechnoBubble (Spain) with Fun Cam – a mixed reality game that connects your camera on your mobile device to the TV

The winners will be announced at the Nokia Games Summit in Rome on 29 October.

Who will win one of the most prestigious mobile gaming prizes of 2008? [Game Challenge via NokNok.tv]

It was a nice idea, hampered slightly by the fact that games had to be rewritten to add support for the thing. Now Nokia has decided to embrace the ZeeMote by releasing downloadable software to let the controller work with almost any S60 app or N-Gage game.

The ZeeKey app is available for free download from the Nokia website and the mobile manufacturer has promised to bundle the app with selected handsets (presumably its more entertainment focused N-Series models).

Zeekey app for Zeemote available for Nokia phones [Pocket Lint]

PocketGamer got a look at a new accelerometer-based mobile racing game from Firemint.

As you can see from the video, Real Racing runs on the iPhone — and certainly confirms our hopes for that platform’s gaming prowess — but Firemint also have it up and running on a Nokia N95 (all the recent N-series phones have motion sensors built in).

Multiplayer races can take place over a wifi link, and your racing stats are automatically uploaded to the Firemint web site. Brilliantly, the game will also upload videos of your best times to YouTube and share your rankings via Facebook and OpenSocial into the bargain.

GCDC 2008: Firemint shows off awesome iPhone racing game [PocketGamer]

Our policy is that the N-Gage activation codes only work on the device where they were first activated. As with any digital media there is a potential risk of piracy and this policy is one of the ways we are dealing with piracy and ensuring our partners receive their rightful revenues from our platform.

Way to go, Nokia. Didn’t think anybody could have a worse DRM track record than Microsoft, but then, records are meant to be broken.

Gamers ‘angry’ over new N-Gage’s DRM [Develop]

Official N-Gage Site [via Gizmodo AU]