Phone Scoop reports that while all these gaming handsets will share the same baseline hardware specifications – (camera, handset TV, etc.) - to ease software development - they'll each come in different form factors and focus on a variety of secondary functions, just like the NSeries and ESeries models. For example, the E61 features a QWERTY thumb-keyboard, while the E70 and E60 do not, and the N91 is focused on pictures with its Carl Zeiss optics-based camera and twist and turn design, while the N91 is a music phone with its 4 GB hard disk drive.

Nokia promised to expand its mobile gaming solutions to other S60 smartphones besides its N-Gage devices last May. The company already announced support for N-Gage gaming in certain NSeries models, but this is the first time it has indicated plans to create smartphones that specialize in gaming - but not as exclusively as N-Gage.

It plans to show developers the baseline for these gaming smartphones this summer. If Nokia is referring to its next-gen gaming platform and not N-Gage, then these smartphones won't ship until the first half of 2007.

Nokia unveiled the successor to the failed N-Gage platform earlier this week, in addition to a software development kit (SDK) with additional support for wireless game developers, and SNAP Mobile, a solution for the creation of Java-based online gaming communities.

The new gaming interface is compatible with a range of smartphones and is built on the S60 interface – just like the NSeries and ESeries (on top of the Symbian OS, of course). Nokia said the new development tools and consumer interface are designed to empower the mobile games industry to create high quality 3D mobile games for Nokia smartphones.