N-Gage chart confirms swing to casual

If you needed more proof that N-Gage is becoming a big platform for casual gaming, take a look at the latest sales chart, published by Nokia late last week.

Glu's World Series of Poker: Pro Challenge takes top spot, followed by Tetris, Asphalt 3: Street Rules, FIFA 09, and Cafe Solitaire 12-Pack.

It means Nokia's beat 'em up ONE has dropped out of the chart a few weeks after it went on sale. Perhaps more significantly, it's the first time the N-Gage Top 5 hasn't featured one of Nokia's first-party games.

Neither of these are meant to be criticisms. The dominance of casual games shows that embedding the N-Gage client in popular handsets like the N96 is attracting a broader gaming audience, while the popularity of third-party titles may encourage more publishers to throw their weight behind Nokia's platform.

There may be a concern over whether the considerable budgets invested in games like ONE and Reset Generation are paying off in sales, though.

However, the challenge for third-party N-Gage publishers in 2009 will be to come up with a second wave of casual games that make more use of N-Gage's technology and community features than their first titles did.