Shroud of secrecy slips a little

Nokia has been remarkably coy, nay, evasive on sales of the unloved N-Gage - telling us only that 400,000 of the handsets had shipped (not sold) to shops in the first few of weeks after its launch in October 2003.

Now the Finns have finally revealed that 1.3 million N-Gages have actually been sold in the first 15 months of its life. Not bad at all, but unfortunately that's dwarfed by the 2.8m units of the DS unloaded by Nintendo in one month.

Still on the DS, the European launch date and pricing were confirmed at a bash in Paris yesterday. Stock hits shops on March 11 for €149 and it will include Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt in the bundle.

Lastly in console news, Sony is rumoured to be launching a music download service for the PSP handheld, also due here in March. Let's hope they do something about the existing and rather crap Sony Connect online music store (not available in Ireland, luckily) in the meantime.