Although no absolute launch date had been promised by Nokia, Reuters is reporting that the company has delayed opening its N-gage gaming service to December from November due to delays with software testing, a spokesman has said.

"N-gage is coming in December. Software testing is taking a bit more time than what we had expected", Kari Tuutti told Reuters. "We are talking about a couple of weeks."

The gaming service, the progression of the N-gage platform from standalone hardware to a software offering across Nokia's top end range of phones was announced earlier this year.

Along with mapping, and the Nokia Music Store launched yesterday, the gaming offerings will form part of Nokia's new "Ovi" branding.

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