Nintendo is ditching mobile, and it’s all your fault.
About 3 years ago, Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto, the legendary creator of Mario and other popular franchises took to the stage at an Apple event to announce the debut of Super Mario Run on the app store. This was a big deal at the time and Nintendo’s stock price jumped on the news. They would eventually release Mario Kart Tour, Animal Crossing: Pocket, Dr. Mario World and Fire Emblem Heroes.
None of you bothered to buy any of these games though. Nintendo reportedly wasn’t a fan of the micro-transaction model that fueled the profits of many freemium games. So that’s it. They’re done, and it’s all your fault. Anyone that really cares about these franchises, is playing them on a switch, Wii, or N64 (even in 2020).
According to a report from Bloomberg, “Nintendo has tested various revenue models for its smartphone games, including one-time purchases for Super Mario Run and subscriptions for Mario Kart Tour. Both apps have fallen short of market expectations in terms of revenue, according to Kazunori Ito of Morningstar Research”
Nintendo doesn’t have to pay platform fees for console or mobile titles on their own hardware. They’re not interested in paying those fees. Square-Enix. generates a lot of revenue from a dozen Dragon Quest Walk titles and three dozen Final Fantasy games for phones. 30% of the revenue goes to Apple when sold on the app store.
The report states that the Animal Crossing mobile app saw a 45% uptick in earnings as the Switch game was released. Apple takes 30% of all app store transactions and is currently battling a wave of backlash from developers and foreign governments.
As for the Switch, according to NPD, “Nintendo Switch was the best-selling hardware platform in May in both unit and dollar sales,” said Piscatella. “Nintendo Switch unit sales were the highest for an individual platform in a May month since the Nintendo 3DS in May 2009.”
I’m pretty sure everyone who wants to play these games has a Switch. The rest of us, will make do with what we have.
