When Nintendo announced that they were going to be doing a slew of official mobile games based on their hit IP, a lot of players were excited, but they were also nervous about what the mobile versions of the games would be like. Over the course of the last few years The Big N has released 6 major mobile games (Pokemon GO does not count as it was made by Niantic), all with various amounts of success. But as Sensor Tower has noted, when you combine their successes, you get over $1 billion dollars in player spending.
As you’ll see in the chart below, the biggest seller (in terms of players buying items in-game) is Fire Emblem Heroes, which has grossed an incredible $656 million dollars. Animal Crossing Pocket Camp is in second place, followed by the surprising rise of Dragalia Lost, then Mario Kart Tour (which is the most recent release in the Mobile Initiative), Super Mario Run (which started everything off) and then finally Dr. Mario World.
In terms of WHERE the most money is spent, that is Japan, and that’s not too surprising given the natures of Fire Emblem Heroes and Dragalia Lost (which is very Gatcha oriented which is a huge thing in Japan). Over $500 million was spent on these games overall in Japan. The United States came in second place with over $300 million spent.
The real question now is not just, “What game is next?”, but, “Cant they replicate the success of Fire Emblem Heroes?” It’s very ironic that this game, which at the time of its launch was not fully a AAA franchise, has gotten the most money. While the now THREE Mario games that have been put on the mobile platforms hasn’t even gotten to one-third of its profits.
But then again, if you put Animal Crossing and Draglia Lost together, you wouldn’t even reach HALF of what Heroes has done. Nintendo will no doubt want to try and get another big seller so that they’re not just going and relying on Fire Emblem, but we’ll see what they do next.
