With this announcement, to access N-Gage content, N-Gage owners can simply browse Nokia's online catalogs to see what is available and then download their choices to a PC. With a compatible memory card reader and memory card, game files can then be installed to N-Gage. The price of games start at $20 euros, which is about $26.

And while these games are compatible with the original N-Gage models, they should also work with some additional S60 models, including the some of the extremely popular multimedia Nseries. This is the direction Nokia plans to move going forward, as the Finnish phone maker will create no more NGage devices, but will continue to bring superior gaming capabilities to a wider array of smartphones.

Nokia said it would port the underlying gaming technology behind N-Gage and its successor software platform - introduced at the annual Games Developer Conference in March - to all of its consumer-centric Nseries smartphones during the first half of next year.

"As we move forward with our next generation of mobile gaming, we continue to offer N-Gage owners easy ways to get games," says Jukka Hosio, Director, Global Sales, Multimedia, Nokia. "The N-Gage platform is recognized worldwide for its high-quality mobile gaming content. By making these games available for download over the internet, we're making it easier for N-Gage owners to find and purchase new games."

At the annual Games Developer Conference (GDC) in San Diego this spring, Nokia trumpeted its future in mobile gaming, which, according to Informa Telecoms & Media, surpassed $2.43 billion in 2005, is projected to reach $4.02 billion this year, and could top $10.17 billion in revenue by the end of the decade.

The company said the new gaming interface will be compatible with a range of smartphones and be built on the S60 interface (on top of the Symbian OS, of course). S60 is the most popular smartphone platform in the world, by far.

By bringing its new gaming interface to S60 as a whole, Nokia has a much better chance of attracting developers. The difficulty in developing for N-Gage, the perceived lack of support by Nokia, and high costs involved resulted in far fewer applications than users and operators had hoped for.

Nokia says the new development tools and consumer interface are designed to empower the mobile games industry to create high quality 3D mobile games for Nokia smartphones. The first of which aren't due until the first half of 2007.

One estimate puts the number of devices that will initially ship with the new gaming interface at about 5 million, possibly rising to tens of millions in the ensuing years.

Nokia said new developer tools include Game Development Libraries, based on C++ programming libraries that are updatable on client devices for resolving compatibility issues, and adding new features including industry standard DRM solutions for content protection with minimal integration. Developers can also take advantage of the real-time connected gaming and community features enabled by the N-Gage Arena.

There's also Nokia provided debugging and analyzing tools, as well as enhanced support through a new PRO Games Zone section for game developers on Forum Nokia, the company's developer site. It joins an expanded Mobile Games section on the Forum Nokia community Web site.

Nokia also wants to make it easier for operators to create communities for gamers to support its new mobile game interface and developer initiatives. SNAP Mobile's purpose is to encourage the creation of these online communities for mobile Java games, using the same underlying technology as N-Gage Arena.

Operators who choose SNAP Mobile’s Starter Kit or Standard Package, for example, can have their users hosted on the SNAP Mobile Community, a full-featured, generic Web site, which creates an online gaming community almost instantly, according to Nokia.

Nokia said in-game players will have their own unique user identities, as well as features such as friend lists, presence, rankings, chat and instant messaging. Out-of-game, users will not only have the ability to maintain their unique user identities and view rankings, but will also have at their disposal news and events, message boards, and featured game pages.

SNAP Mobile’s Premium Package provides a community Web site that can be fully customized to suit the operator’s needs.

Nokia has sold 5 million of these multimedia-centric Nseries smartphones since introducing them last year. Canalys research reports 53 million multimedia phones sold in 2005, with Nokia commanding more than 50 percent of them. Nokia expects this market will hit 100 million units in 2006 and exceed 250 million by 2008.