Nokia is the worldwide leader in the cell phone handset market with a 40 percent market share, selling over 150 million phones on the global market.

Analysts who cover Nokia estimate the start-up costs of launching the N-Gage platform are close to $175 million, and it could be several quarters before the company begins to realize the financial benefits on the product launch.

Nokia is working with some European mobile service providers to offer reduced rates for the new N-Gage devices. Those companies include mmO2 and Telfort of The Netherlands. Nokia made no public statement regarding any discounts given to service providers and retailers.

Nokia said N-Gage will be sold in 60 countries in more than 30,000 electronics retailers.

In a separate announcement on Tuesday, Nokia said it expects the mobile data services market to grow more than four-fold in the next four years. The company said it believes the mobile data services market is close to $47 billion, and speculates it will grow to more than $211 billion by 2007.

Nokia also said on Tuesday it struck a deal with the IMG/TWI, the sports marketing firm about starting a new trial for a mobile multimedia sports service.

"Nokia and international sports marketing company IMG/TWI teamed up to develop the Essential Sports Service to deliver sports images, news, updates and audio commentary to sports' fans mobile phones. In total five operators in Asia Pacific and Europe offered the individually branded services to their MMS subscribers," the companies said.