Nokia have today announced plans to trial the next-generation of the firm's mobile gaming service, with the handset manufacturer vowing to be at the forefront of mobile phone gaming, despite the failure of the original dedicated N-Gage 'gamedeck' device.

A trial of the new service alongside Elisa will take place from this month until mid-2007. “The core of the Nokia games 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,” commented Jaakko Kaidesoja, Director, Games, Multimedia, Nokia. “This pilot will help us further refine the N-Gage experience for our commercial launch later this year.”

"Our goal is to give our customers a new and unique experience they cannot get anywhere else,” added Elisa's Mikko Mattinen. Elisa already operates a mobile gaming network, and will integrate the N-Gage platform to test new features in a live environment. The combination should offer Elisa gamers an improved experience, according to the press spiel from Nokia.

The partnership should see better games and better availability, with Elisa offering related games through a number of portals in addition to N-Gage supporting phones. More N-Gage renaissance chatter as we get it.

By Luke Guttridge