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N-Gage delayed until 2008

Nokia confirms the news we feared

N-Gage delayed until 2008
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Well, we won't be seeing the 'First Access' N-Gage application this week after all. Nokia has confirmed - again in a post on the official N-Gage blog - that even the pre-release soft-launch of N-Gage has slipped to 2008.

In full:

"Unfortunately, as can sometimes happen in software development, unexpected difficulties can occur. We have been doing an internal run with more than 1,000 global testers this week, and during this process we uncovered an issue we feel we need to address. Overall, the games and service are working smoothly, but because of this issue, we feel we could not release N-Gage First Access before the holidays as planned."

Instead, the post says Nokia will "continue to polish the overall experience, ready more games for N-Gage First Access, carry on our extensive internal testing over the holidays, and prepare for the new year and the new wave of mobile play."

It was due to launch in November, then December, and now it's hopefully coming early next year. We are, frankly, speechless. But perhaps it's less of a disappointment for consumers, rather than frustrated industry folk. What are your thoughts?

Stuart Dredge
Stuart Dredge
Stuart is a freelance journalist and blogger who's been getting paid to write stuff since 1998. In that time, he's focused on topics ranging from Sega's Dreamcast console to robots. That's what you call versatility. (Or a short attention span.)