Beware citizens, for it would appear that the T-Virus has mutated, and has now taken to resurrecting not only the recently deceased, but also mobile platforms thought long since dead. Or at the very least irrelevant. Gamasutra reports that Capcom is bringing a game based on its upcoming CGI flick, Resident Evil: Degeneration, to Nokia's N-Gage service, which (re)launched earlier this year and is available on multiple Nokia smartphones.

According to the report, the movie tie-in will feature two separate modes of play and 3D graphics designed to both show off the platform's capabilities and illustrate Capcom's "dedication to N-Gage," a fascination we imagine will blur the line between devotion and necrophilia when the title launches later this year.

The official announcement of the platform is due on Monday, but Nokia has gone ahead and flipped the switch before the weekend, in the interest of drumming up some early traffic. The application is compatible with Nokia's N81, N81 8GB, N82, N95, and N95 8GB phones, and at this time only five games are available, including Brain Challenge, System Rush: Evolution, and World Series of Poker. All games offer free trials, and can be purchased from directly from the computer once the N-Gage account is created on the mobile phone.

More games are listed as "coming soon," including Worms World Party, Sims 2 Pets, and the ever-ubiquitous Tetris. If any of you have had a chance to install and try out the N-Gage app on your Nokia handsets, let us know your thoughts in the comments. We're quite curious if it was all worth the wait.

Following a short overview on the state of the N-Gage platform, we had a chance to ask J. Dan Scott – the Global Head of Production for Nokia Game Publishing – a few questions about the platform and the nebulous launch date. First up, Scott said there's no solid release date for the service -- the First Access program is supposed to help iron out any kinks in the admittedly ambitious launch. Launched earlier this month, the First Access program was initially limited to just the Nokia N81 handset, to limit the testing concerns, Scott said. Nevertheless, the internet had other plans, quickly enabling functionality on the N95 handset which, curiously enough, Scott said accounted for more than half of the connections to the service.

Roughly 30K users have downloaded the client to date – far more than the 2K or so Scott anticipated – and those early adopters have purchased "thousands" of games, a conversion rate that also impressed Scott (though he did admit these consumers are particularly passionate about games). The largest challenge: getting out of the mobile industry's "landfill stage" and prove to consumers (and skeptical game bloggers!) that quality gaming is possible on a mobile handset, while proving to third-party publishers that investing in developing quality games can be a lucrative endeavor. Yikes, best of luck!

Personalization is all the rage in games these days, what with Miis, face-mapping and, er, laser-etched portables showing up all over the place. Now Nokia's jumping into the personalized gaming, uh, game with the Yamake initiative for the new N-Gage platform.

According to the announcement, Yamake mini-games (because "ya make" 'em ... get it?) will lets users add "personal content such as text, pictures, sound clips and movies from the mobile device or PC" to create picture puzzles, trivia quizzes and more. Sure, it doesn't sound like anything you can't already do online, but the ability to create and share these little personalized games easily on your phone might be cool. Trust us ... even if you don't get it, your little sister will love it.

[Via Engadget]

Nokia's new N-Gage-as-gaming-platform concept was originally supposed to blow our minds in September ... and then November ... and then December ... and now – according to a Reuters report published today – it will be delayed into "early 2008" due to "delays in software testing." Nokia spokesperson Karen Tuutti explained, "We found one more issue which had to be solved before we could open the service." We presume that would be the issue of convincing gamers to pay any attention to the now comically delayed service.

They've certainly been taking their time with it, but Nokia is finally just about ready to re-launch the N-Gage gaming platform for mobile phones... kinda. This week, a pre-release version of the service will become available to owners of the Nokia N81 phone, along with at least one game title available for download.

The revamped N-Gage service offers a consistent platform for mobile gaming, with features like profiles, friends lists, achievements, play history, and others seemingly "appropriated" from Microsoft's Xbox Live service.

Nokia has not been more specific as to when the pre-release service will launch for the N81. The full service is also expected to start sometime this month, but Nokia has also not been more specific with this time-frame either.

Those of you clamoring for the glorious return of Nokia's N-Gage brand (both of you) will have to wait a little longer to enjoy the unified-cell-phone-gaming-platform goodness. Originally planned for a September launch, Nokia later announced a worldwide November launch for the platform, and now a Reuters story reveals the launch has been pushed back to December. "Software testing is taking a bit more time than what we had expected," Nokia spokesperson Kari Tuutti told the news agency. "We are talking about a couple of weeks."

While the N-Gage name has become a bit of a joke in gaming circles, the new focus on standardized games that can play on a variety of handsets has some potential. Here's hoping Nokia manages to make us care about cell phone gaming again for the first time when this thing finally sees the light of day.

Don't be confused: Nokia's N-Gage gaming platform isn't the same as its ill-fated hardware iterations of the same name. And while sidetalking might be a thing of the past, Nokia's still confident that the N-Gage name can live on in mobile phone games, especially as a client for facilitating online play.

That said, Pocket Gamer reports that Nokia is working on a new title for the N-Gage platform, which will be playable not just on mobile phones, but on PCs as well. The game, codenamed "Project White Rock," is being developed by RedLynx, makers of the well-received wartime strategy title Pathway to Glory. The team is also being led by Scott Foe, who previously worked on Pocket Kingdom: 0wn the the W0rld, notable for its equally positive press and for being the first ever mobile phone MMO.

Though little is known about "Project White Rock", Foe did inform Pocket Gamer that the title will feature over a thousand lines of recorded dialog, and will utilize unique technology purchased from Sega that will allow the mobile version to connect with the PC version. Details pertaining to the game's specific genre, multi-platform connectivity, and release date are as yet unknown, but will most likely come forth when the game is officially announced.

In today's video pick, GameTrailers counts down its list of the top ten console failures, including the Jaguar, Virtual Boy, and 3DO. We were tortured by watching footage of these console failures, yet we couldn't turn away, wishing that the hardware had succeeded while laughing about all the obvious reasons the systems bombed. The list covers the systems we expected; would you have added others?

See the video after the break.

We know that the PSP is powerful. But how powerful is it compared to handhelds before it? A lot more, as seen by Pocket Gamer's recent analysis of handheld systems. PSP's 333MHz of processing power knocks makes the rest of the chart seem miniscule in comparison.

Pocket Gamer's feature is certainly an eye-opener. Of particular note is a fascinating diagram of screen sizes, overlaying each other. The PSP's wide screen LCD far exceeds the size of its nearest competitor, the Nomad. Even with such impressive statistics, the system remains one of the lightest handhelds created, and doesn't stand out as disproportionately larger than the others. This is a must-read feature for any PSP fan.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is fired up to win this election like it's 1999. Stopping in Texas, Obama spoke to a group of youths about recruiting their friends for his campaign and said, "I want you to tell them, 'It's time for you to turn off the TV and stop playing GameBoy' ... We've got work to do."

A good first step is for Obama's speech writer to learn this is the 2008 election. If we're going to be hip and cool, let's learn what the kids are actually playing. Words to use in the future are: Wii, PlayStation, Xbox, DS -- and N-Gage.

[Thanks Obo]

Joystiq sister site Engadget recently unearthed a great Nintendo patent filed way back in 2001 for an "Electronic apparatus having game and telephone functions" -- that's right, plans for a gaming cell phone from Nintendo. Mock-up pictures of the device show a small, Game Boy-style D-pad and buttons atop a standard 12-button cell phone layout, along with sketches of a game of "Super Mario DX" being interrupted by an incoming call.

While the failure of the N-Gage and the current success of the Nintendo DS make it somewhat unlikely we'll see any actual products created from this patent anytime soon, it's still interesting to note that Nintendo included cell phones in its mobile gaming plans, at least at some point.

You don't have to tell Nokia that the original N-Gage was not the success they had imagined. They already know. That won't stop them from giving it the ol' college try as Nokia plans on rolling out a new N-Gage by this September.

In a brief statement on the official N-Gage blog, Nokia makes mention of a September release amidst reassuring that more than two publishers are on board for the new platform.

At the moment, only EA Mobile and Gameloft have known commitments for the new N-Gage with both publishers having already released titles for the original device. With Gameloft holding the lucrative Totally Spies license, we can only cross our fingers and hope for a next generation N-Gage follow-up.

Since failing in a spectacular fashion is so much fun that they wanted to do it again, Nokia is gunning hard for their second generation N-Gage, according to UK site Pocket Gamer. If you haven't been following the story, this time Nokia's not attempting to make a dedicated handheld-phone hybrid, but rather a platform for gaming that can be used with their N-series smart phones. Is that a better recipe for success? It will depend on the execution, of course, but apparently Nokia's been meeting with some big developers lately and they have plans to reveal the platform at next month's Game Developers Conference.

They are, obviously, fixing some of last round's mistakes; if there's no dedicated handheld and the service is supported by downloadable games, then gamers will have no reason to complain about having to completely dismantle the device just to change games. On the other hand, we figure it's probably safe to assume that most gamers with smart phones already have a handheld they love and cherish, so at best this may free up a pocket. What do you think, DS gamers? While a download service would certainly be a nice thing to have on our handheld (we're looking at you, Virtual Console), is the new N-Gage platform a threat to our dual-screened beauty?

People like to say the PSP is a failure. That would be incorrect. Calling the first N-Gage a failure, on the other hand, is quite apt. We reported back in November that Nokia was interested in making a comeback into the games arena with yet another N-Gage. In the era of the iPhone, a $600 convergence machine that can make calls and play games doesn't seem so outrageous. Does Nokia have what it takes to pull it off?

If Pocket Gamer is to be believed, it appears many top-name publishers are interested in Nokia's latest device. Supposedly, Nokia held a "top secret" two-day event, which was attended by big-name publishers, such as Sega, Square Enix, Capcom, THQ, EA, Tecmo, Namco, Vivendi ... and Sony. What? If this "top secret" meeting didn't seem fishy enough, Sony's presence makes it even more obvious that Pocket Gamer's reporting is downright inaccurate. Why would Sony want to work on a platform that directly competes against the PSP? (Of course, history buffs will remember that Sony did go on to make at least one game for a Nintendo platform.)

If by some chance this mysterious Nokia meeting did happen, and Sony happened to be there, we'd like to think they're simply trying to get ideas for the rumored PSP phone. The validity of Pocket Gamer's claim will be tested next week, during a new conference that will supposedly happen in Madrid.

[Via Joystiq]