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The N-Gage is a mobile telephone and handheld game system based on the Nokia Series 60 platform. It began sales on October 7, 2003. It attempted to lure gamers away from the Game Boy Advance by including cellphone functionality. This was unsuccessful, partly because the buttons, designed for a phone, were not well-suited for gaming and when used as a phone the original N-Gage was described as resembling a "taco".
In 2005, Nokia announced that it would move its N-Gage games capabilities onto a series of smartphones. These devices have been available since early 2007, and a pre-release version of the N-Gage application allowing users to purchase and download games was made available for download from the official N-Gage website on February 4, 2008. The full version of the N-Gage service was released to the public on April 3, 2008.
In the late 1990s, gamers increasingly carried both mobile phones and handheld game consoles. Nokia spotted an opportunity to combine these devices into one unit. They developed the N-Gage, a device that integrated these two devices. Instead of using cables, multiplayer gaming was accomplished with Bluetooth or the Internet (via the N-Gage Arena service). The N-Gage also included MP3 and Real Audio/Video playback and PDA-like features into the system.
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