Nokia has announced the official end of its N-Gage gaming platform, marking the end of an icon of disappointment in the mobile gaming industry. With many Nokia games being offered through its Ovi Store, the company said that it will cease selling N-Gage games in September 2010 with the N-Gage Arena to be closed later in 2010; Nokia has also promised that it would work to implement as much of the lost functionality as possible into the Ovi Store.

Released in 2002, the N-Gage platform marked Nokia’s first effort at a mobile game more complicated than Snake but never turned into the flagship gaming product that Nokia has hoped for. The act of combining a usable handheld gaming system with a mobile phone lead to a strong rejection of the side-talking form factor seen in the original N-Gage phone with its successors not fairing much better. N-Gage games have been sold at some profit for Nokia via the many other Nokia S60 devices that support the games but the N-Gage platform itself is now not useful as the company pursues a stronger hold in the mobile gaming niche.

Read the official announcement on the official Nokia N-Gage blog.