Nokia announced last year that they're working on new Nokia game phones equipped with N-Gage technology. There won't be a new N-Gage phone, but their high-end models will include beefed-up N-Gage-like technology enabling them to play some pretty sophisticated games.

That was over a year ago, though, but now, thanks to a new patent approval and Nokia's announcement of its new online gaming platform, some of Nokia's plans are starting to take shape.

The patent features a new way of adding a joysitck to a mobile phone. Put simply, Nokia's idea is to stick a touchscreen phone's stylus into a joypad, and voila, instant joystick! Put in a more legalese-type of way, Nokia's idea is for:

"A method for integrating a pointing device into a handheld device, the method comprising the steps of: rotatably mounting a ball within a socket defined by said handheld device, said ball defining an orifice for receiving a stylus, said socket being configured for generating to a processor of said handheld device electrical signals indicative of movement of said ball in response to movement of said stylus; and imparting pointing device logic to said processor for responding to said signals."

Of course, so simple when you say it like that!

In addition to the patent, Nokia have also announced that they're trialling Nokia's new N-Gage mobile gaming platform with Finnish company Elisa.

"The core of the Nokia games strategy is to make it easy for people to find, buy and play great quality mobile games and we're excited to expand our relationship with Elisa to help make this possible," said Jaakko Kaidesoja, Director, Games, Multimedia, Nokia. "This pilot will help us further refine the N-Gage experience for our commercial launch later this year."

In other words, the "new N-Gage mobile gaming platform" is simply a way of buying and downloading games from your mobile phone, which perhaps isn't as exciting as a new N-Gage based gaming phone.

That said, it's clear that Nokia still haven't given up on mobile gaming, and they'll be making more announcements of their N-Gage plans later in the year. The stylus-based patent probably won't be used (can't help but think the stylus will break too easily!), but some form of N-Gage like technology will certainly feature strongly in one or more of their 2007 phones.

[Source: Joystiq]