News 

The gaming service, together with a music shop and mapping services, is one of the cornerstones of Nokia's drive into mobile Internet services under its new Ovi brand.

Nokia has also delayed the expansion of its digital music store until next year, while Warner Music has been withholding content from Nokia's only store in Britain. At the same time it has signed up Vodafone, Telefonica and Telecom Italia for Ovi.

Nokia unveiled the gaming service in August, saying at the time it would be available globally in November. But in November it was delayed into December.

Nokia's spokesman Kari Tuutti said the service would be opened in early 2008.

"We found one more issue which had to be solved before we could open the service," Tuutti said.

Nokia is the first handset maker to move strongly into the content space with services like music or file-sharing site Mosh, where millions have downloaded audio or video files, programs and documents.