It seems like Nokia has finally gotten around to admitting announcing that its mobile phone-handheld gaming platform and service, N-Gage, is dead. Nokia is consolidating all future mobile apps into the Ovi store.

Nokia is essentially forgetting about the N-Gage name, allowing the site, games and N-Gage application to operate on the hardware that will currently run it but not supporting it on any new devices or developing any more games for it. Instead, the company is putting its focus into the Ovi Store and trying to compete with Apple’s App Store. Along those lines, Nokia announced that 200,000 people are signing up for Ovi each day (for 140 million worldwide users) and 2.3 million Ovi apps are being downloaded each day.

Square Enix has been a tease with its cellphone games in recent times, what with the long-desired but cell-exclusive Parasite Eve and Tobal sequels (and the less desired, more cynical upcoming Final Fantasy IV sequel). However, the same will no longer apply to Front Mission, as Front Mission 2089: Border of Madness will be ported to the DS.

This announcement is a direct response to players of the roughly three-year-old cellphone game, as Producer Koichiro Sakamoto notes that they would rather play games on dedicated systems rather than phones, and this is largely an attempt to broaden 2089‘s audience.

According to President of Airborne Entertainment, Andy Nulman, mobile phone games fail to attract gamers to portable gaming in the shadow of PCs and consoles. It’s hard enough to read the phone numbers off the tiny little screen much less see how you’re doing on the game.

Even trying to monitor your cell phone batteries while you play – hoping to make that final score before its completely drained completely – makes gaming on a cellular phone less attractive.

That is why Nulman is taking a different approach to cellphone gaming, declaring that “the passion isn’t there” during his recent keynote speech at the Playback Magazine Mobile Entertainment Forum (titled “Mobile: What Sucks and How to Fix It”). n his speech, Nulman discussed the many obstacles that have created indifferent consumers.