A closer look at Nokia's in-box N-Gage promotion

Nokia has always maintained that the potential of its N-Gage mobile gaming platform would only be revealed once it was being embedded in handsets.

However, there's been a legitimate question about whether people buying a Nokia phone would find the N-Gage app, given the host of other applications and content preloaded on handsets these days.

That said, we've been playing with an N95 8GB Comes With Music handset over Christmas, and it shows how Nokia is promoting N-Gage in-box.

Although the marketing focus is clearly on music, inside there's a separate 40-page booklet promoting N-Gage (admittedly that's four pages per language).

Gameloft's Asphalt 3: Street Rules is the focus of the promotion, and the booklet includes a free activation code to download the full version of the game.

The booklet also explains how to find and start the N-Gage application on the handset, while also giving more details about how N-Gage works.

We're certainly impressed nobody buying the handset could miss the promotion, for sure. More shots of the booklet are below.