Despite its reputation for pushing cutting edge 3D graphics on mobile, German developer Fishlabs' history stretches back into the days when Java ruled the operator decks.

Thanks to that lineage, it's also worked closely with the handset manufacturers, including Nokia.

And CEO Michael Schade is certainly enthusiastic about the reinvigorated OEM.

We caught up to find out why he's so keen on the opportunities of the Ovi Store, Symbian^3 and MeeGo.

Pocket Gamer: Were you impressed by Nokia's announcements at Nokia World 2010?

Michael Schade: Well, we have always been pointing out that Nokia is not to be underestimated and that, clearly, the number one handset manufacturer in the world has the power to sell the right phone to everyone and deliver content through the Ovi Store to all these devices directly in more countries than anyone else.

For us the best news is that with its new CEO Stephen Elop, Nokia is committed from the very top to support the developer community and to push mobile content.

What do you think about the N8 device?

The N8 is a great piece of hardware. It has all the good stuff like being a highly reliable mobile phone, the best camera in the market and finally, great gaming capabilities too.

We have no doubt that this will be a multi million selling device and with our two launch titles Galaxy on Fire and Rally Master Pro, we know we will reach out to a vast new user base.

Watch out for our official announcement coming soon.

More generally, will you be supporting Symbian^3 as a mobile OS?

We will support any Symbian^3 device that comes with the right horsepower to run our high end games.

Thanks to the consistency of the platform, it's like a breeze to support different Symbian^3 devices.

What are your views about MeeGo?

We are even more excited about MeeGo as it is more open than Symbian^3 and very lean in terms of the underlying OS layer.

The games SDK provided from Nokia also helps a lot to streamline the development.

Do you think Ovi Store is now a viable commercial app store for games?

The Ovi Store will become the second app store that will generate significant revenue for us.

By introducing in-app purchases, Nokia has proved it understands how important content is and that developers need a solid ecosystem to monetise their investments.

Were you impressed with the potential of being able to do operator billing and in-app purchases via Ovi Store, even at a reduced revenue split of 60:40?

The 60:40 split is a bit misleading if compared to Apple. Traditionally, if you want to sell content through carriers, only the big guys with a direct carrier deal get a 60 percent cut.

All the others are left with 25-40 percent as we have to sell through aggregators. In other words: Nokia enables even the smallest developer to have the same deal as a big publisher.

How big an issue is it for you that Nokia doesn't have any presence in the North American market?

Nokia may not be a big player in the US yet but it adds an even bigger market for developers.

With operator billing, Nokia reaches out to some 100 million subscribers in emerging markets like Russia, Latin America and Asia where credit cards are not common but smartphones are on the rise.

We already have a strong fan base in Russia and Latin America thanks to our 3D Java titles such as Galaxy on Fire, Rally Master Pro and Blades & Magic.

Sooner or later our fans in these regions will turn their feature phones into smartphones and from the emails we get asking which smartphones we will support, Nokia will dominate Android by a factor of 20:1.

What do you think Nokia still needs to do to encourage more game developers to support it?

It is the success stories from small and mid tier developers that will bring more developers to the platform. If Nokia generates good business for some of us indies the rest will follow.

Thanks to Michael for his time