The week started with the news that Nokia’s N-Gage gaming platform was officially dead. However, it’s no way near as bad as it sounds with Nokia’s gaming responsibilities being passed over to the Ovi Store, which will see everything housed under one roof. The unification of services within the Ovi Store has many benefits, both for gamers and developers. Read on after the jump for more details.

According to Mark Ollila, the man responsible for games at Nokia, some 150 developers have already published over a 1000 games for the Ovi Store, which is certainly a good start. In addition, the new platform will open up Nokia’s gaming platform to even more developers than before as the Ovi Store reaches over 180 countries worldwide.

The switch has already seen the development of what Ollila terms, “Games for everyone”, which includes casual games, arcade games, and action games that are already available on the Ovi Store.

Nevertheless, the shift is also important to developers, as it will enable them to create games for use across Nokia’s whole catalogue of devices, enabling developers to have far greater reach than they previously had with N-Gage.

Nokia is apparently also going to release two or three more games before the end of the year, which will showcase specific technology. Gaming fans will also be pleased to learn of the imminent arrival of Sky Force, the new game from the creators of Creatures of the Deep, which will keep those N-Gage players busy.

Overall, the unification of gaming under Ovi Store sounds very promising, both for developers and gamers. What do you think, will you miss N-Gage, or do you have high hopes for gaming on the Ovi Store? Tell us in the Comments below.

Check out the video interview with Mark Ollila:

Via: Nokia Conversations