Friday, July 10, 2009
Nokia Dis-N-Gage-ing Vancouver Games Studio
Develop is reporting that Nokia is eliminating 100 jobs and shuttering the Canadian game development facility that was once the center of the Finnish handset manufacturer's gaming ambitions...going back to N-Gage 1.0 (the "taco") era. While it's no secret that Nokia is in the process of major headcount reduction WW, and it is widely rumored to be abandoning N-Gage 2.0 (the platform & game download service) in favor of making Ovi the destination for all its App/content initiatives, it's unclear whether this move signals that they are getting out of game development altogether. My guess is that they are...and that they will leave it up to 3rd party developer/publishers to fill Ovi's shelves with quality games. What Nokia needs to focus on in the short-term is clarifying to those publishers what platforms they are supporting (is N-Gage still viable?) and convincing them that Ovi is going to be a consumer destination that they should care about.
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