N- Gage games hacked

HACKERS HAVE discovered ways of breaking the copy protection surrounding games written for Nokia's dedicated games console, the N-Gage.

Consequently these games have started to appear posted in chat rooms for others to try out on their mobile phones.

One games enthusiast admitted to being surprised at how well games written for the N-Gage work on other Nokia models such as the 3650 and 6600 models. "I was under the impression that N-Gage was completely different hardware but this doesn't appear to be the case," he told one reporter.

It's not just Nokia phones either. Club-Siemens.net, a site run for Siemens handset fans, carries posting saying that the N-Gage games run very well on the Siemens SX1 handset.

Searching for one particular hacked game file - BlizzardN-Gage.sis - reveals one Web site (nokiafree.org) where hackers are chatting openly about how the games can be run on hardware other than the N-Gage.

"We have discovered that some of the N-Gage games are available for downloading on a number of Web sites," commented Damian Stathonikos, a Nokia spokesperson. "This behaviour is, unfortunately, a relatively common occurrence in the gaming industry." No kidding. µ