Initiated at the time when Nintendo was looking for new sources of revenue following the failure of the Wii U, Nintendo’s mobile offensive never gained the importance that it might have been accorded to it. era, before the Switch became the colossal success that we know. In January 2020, Sensor Tower estimated that Nintendo had generated $1 billion in revenue from its iOS and Android games, primarily from Fire Emblem Heroes which was credited with $656 million in revenue. at this moment.
Two and a half years later, Nintendo’s smartphone games totaled a turnover of 1.8 billion dollars, as reported by the Mobile Gamer site, which carried out an inventory using data transmitted by Sensor Tower. This sum is the product of the expenses made by the players on Fire Emblem Heroes, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, Mario Kart Tour, Dragalia Lost, Super Mario Run and Dr. Mario World, knowing that the last named has already closed its doors and that Dragalia Lost will also stop the charges soon.
Between the two, the case of Super Mario Run, a great ambassador announced with great fanfare by Shigeru Miyamoto on the Apple scene, can be considered an obvious economic disappointment with only 87 million dollars for a number of downloads that is nevertheless very high ( 307 million). Quite the opposite of Fire Emblem Heroes, Nintendo’s great success, which only needed 18 million downloads for fans to spend $983 million.
The billion is getting closer for this gacha, true satisfaction of Nintendo’s mobile catalog, which has also remained the most regular game over the years. After generating $154 million in 2019 and 2020, Fire Emblem Heroes again grossed $145 million in 2021. For comparison, Mario Kart Tour and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, Nintendo’s other two biggest games on mobile, held up much less well.
For the record, Fire Emblem Heroes is cited in the recent survey conducted by IGN on the working conditions of temporary workers at Nintendo of America. The article explains that “writers are expected to research characters via fan wikis due to a general lack of documentation“, an anecdote that perhaps reflects the little consideration Nintendo now gives to its mobile strategy, now that the manufacturer is once again shining brightly in the console space.