N-Gage Delayed Again

Nokia’s revamped N-Gage platform has been delayed again, and now won’t appear until sometime in the new year.

GamesIndustry.biz reports that the platform, which had already been held back until December, has been delayed again due to an unidentified issue. Nokia had originally scheduled the updated N-Gage system for a worldwide release in November.

“We know all of you are eager to get started with N-Gage First Access, and we are just as eager to get it into your hands and start hearing your feedback,” the company said in a statement. “We have teams of people around the world, literally, working overtime to deliver this experience to you.”

“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.”

The original N-Gage device was released in 2003 as a combination mobile phone, hand-held gaming device and MP3 player, but a combination of odd design choices and high price kept the unit from selling well. The new N-Gage iteration function as a gaming service instead, and will eventually operate across Nokia’s entire line of mobile phones.