AFI BLOG: Media and Technology

The Wall Street Journal

Nokia Corp. is counting on people such as Rita El Khoury, who splurged on the Finnish phone maker’s €430 ($674) N81 handset so she could be an early user of the company’s N-Gage Internet service platform for videogames.

Nokia wants to draw customers to its feature-rich phones, like the Nokia N95 8GB, a multimedia smart phone.
N81 users have been able to use the service since early February, while everyone else had to wait until Thursday. “N-Gage is a must-have,” said Ms. Khoury, a 22-year-old pharmacy student from Beirut, Lebanon, whose blog entries on electronic devices place an emphasis on Nokia products.

While handset makers world-wide are positioning to grab a piece of the burgeoning market for games on mobile devices, Nokia is setting itself apart by opting to concentrate on an Internet platform providing access to offerings both bigger and more graphics-rich than the Java-based games more commonly found on phones.

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