N-Gage Arena with Sega technology

Nokia's multiplayer plans for N-Gage became a little bit clearer this week, with the announcement first that the Finnish firm will be running an online service (N-Gage Arena) from October 7, and second that the company has acquired Sega.com assets from the Japanese gaming company, including Sega's Network Application Package (SNAP). The price of said assets was described as "immaterial to Nokia" by a spokesman.

SNAP will be used in Nokia's first multiplayer N-Gage game "Pathway to Glory", and will also be licensed to rival gaming companies. The technology will be used for connecting and keeping scores for multiple gamers, which will be served up on N-Gage Arena.

N-Gage Arena will also host cheats, strategy guides, walkthroughs, two-player live gaming, and the ability to record "ghosts" and have players all over the world try and improve on your performance.

Content services will be offered free of charge to begin with, but the service can still be counted towards a user's data traffic, so any budding N-Gage owners can expect that to change after the initial honeymoon period. N-Gage is still set to launch on October 7th, priced at the equivalent of $299, and was on display this week at the Edinburgh International Games Festival.