Nokia launches Ovi Store

Speaking at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Nokia has announced plans to offer mobile games from its N-Gage gaming service through Ovi, which is set to launch in May.

Last week, rival Samsung Electronics launched a service allowing some customers in Europe to buy or rent movies and TV series to download to their mobile phones.

Tero Ojanpera, head of entertainment business at Nokia, said in an interview with Reuters, "Movies will be part of the offering but this kind of a full fledged video store, that is not in our roadmap.

The Ovi store will reach 50 million consumers and Nokia also plan to give 70 per cent of all download revenue to developers if consumers pay by credit card. But Ovi developers will earn less per transaction if buyers elect to pay through their mobile operators.

"We'll make those N-Gage games, from the discovery point of view, available through the Ovi store," said Ojanpera. "What we are trying to do with the Ovi store is, rather than having all these different channels for discovery, we'll move more and more under this Ovi brand and umbrella."

Purchasers from Ovi will have the option of paying through their mobile operator's bill in nine countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore and Spain.