• Light/Dark
  • Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
  • We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.

Nintendo mobile games reach $1 billion in lifetime player spending

Deleted member 10737

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
49,774

Nintendo Mobile Games Reach $1 Billion in Lifetime Player Spending

Nintendo’s mobile games have generated more than $1 billion in lifetime gross revenue, according to Sensor Tower Store Intelligence.
sensortower.com sensortower.com

  • Nintendo's six mobile games have generated more than $1 billion in lifetime revenue from global player spending on the App Store and Google Play, and have amassed a combined 452 million downloads worldwide
  • The majority ($656 million, 61%) has come from Fire Emblem Heroes. The next two highest-grossing titles are Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp (12%) and Dragalia Lost (11%).
  • Mario games have surprisingly contributed smaller shares of overall revenue, with Mario Kart Tour, Super Mario Run and Dr. Mario World being responsible for 8%, 7% and 1% of the revenue, respectively.
  • Nintendo is most successful in Japan ($581 million, 54%), the U.S. has come in second with $316 million (29%). Mario Kart Tour and Super Mario Run skews more towards the U.S., however.
  • The revenue distribution is a stark contrast to the downloads share; Super Mario Run is #1 with 244 million downloads (or 54% of all Nintendo mobile game downloads), Mario Kart Tour's 147 million installs represents 32%. Fire Emblem Heroes only accounts for 4% of the total.

global-player-spendiny3kjg.jpg
 
Xavi

Xavi

Member
Oct 27, 2017
14,777
Lightning for Smash
I have spent like $100 in Dragalia Lost because I think the devs deserve it, it is/was my first gacha game too.

Edit: I guess FEH was my first actually but I didn't spend money on it.
 
Video Games Are Dumb

Video Games Are Dumb

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,033
Milwaukee, WI
For a company like Nintendo, that took way too long.
Really curious to see what their next mobile project will be after Dr Mario flamed out hard.
By the way, how's Mario Kart Tour doing? 86 million seems healthy for it's first year, but as you can see, Super Mario Run hit some early highs and tapered off HARD.
 
Mzril

Mzril

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
435
Nintendo better keep funneling that $$ into traditional Fire Emblem games.

With the relative success of Three Houses, I do see another entry coming for the Switch, but who knows if it will be IntSys developing it.
 
ShinobiBk

ShinobiBk

One Winged Slayer
Member
Dec 28, 2017
10,130
Ok, so this confirms Mario Kart Tour as a massive fucking flop like I thought.

Heroes continues to carry Nintendo's mobile line, that would be a complete disaster if not for that game

Edit - Maybe not a massive flop but that spending is not good for the size of the install base. Also we don't know if it's growing or shrinking. I thought it would at least be past Dragalia Lost
 

Deleted member 51691

User requested account closure
Banned
Jan 6, 2019
17,834
Oof Dr. Mario World

Mario Kart Tour isn't doing so hot either for the Mario Kart mobile game

I'd expect similarly disappointing returns for an attempt to adapt Zelda to mobile
 
Nightbird

Nightbird

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
3,780
Germany
Considering that FE:H is celebrating its 3rd anniversary this week, that 656M$ is not much...

It's not bad, but not that great either.
 
Le Dude

Le Dude

Member
May 16, 2018
4,709
USA
Xavi said:
I have spent like $100 in Dragalia Lost because I think the devs deserve it, it is/was my first gacha game too.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I think I spent $20 on Fire Emblem Heroes? I had played a decent amount of it and I was building the best armor team possible. Black Knight was the last one I had to upgrade so I picked up a bundle that included a 5* Black Knight. Made it to the highest tier, too. Haven't really played since though. I don't mind spending a little money on a free-to-play game if I've spent time with it already and I've enjoyed it.
 
GemmolSwitchPS4

GemmolSwitchPS4

Member
Sep 25, 2018
642
ShinobiBk said:
Ok, so this confirms Mario Kart Tour as a massive fucking flop like I thought.

Heroes continues to carry Nintendo's mobile line, that would be a complete disaster if not for that game

Edit - Maybe not a massive flop but that spending is not good for the size of the install base. Also we don't know if it's growing or shrinking. I thought it would at least be past Dragalia Lost
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

your Confirm is wrong

fire emblem been out way longer than Mario kart it had time to make the money it makes

as of right now mario kart still tracking ahead of it if you Align it
 
Kouriozan

Kouriozan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
21,243
If only Dragalia was available in Europe, it would double that number.
On iOS you can't make CC purchase out of your country.
 
Bigwombat

Bigwombat

Banned
Nov 30, 2018
3,416
I didn't even realize there were fire emblem, animal crossing, and draglia mobile games. That's a crazy sum for fire emblem
 
Zalman

Zalman

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,896
Seeing Fire Emblem rise as much as it has since Awakening after being an underdog IP for its entire life makes me very happy.
 
King Kingo

King Kingo

Banned
Dec 3, 2019
7,656
Looks like Fire Emblem is a literal cash cow now. And to think, the franchise would have been discontinued if Awakening flopped.
 
Bonejack

Bonejack

Member
Oct 27, 2017
16,654
I doubt that DL will ever officially release in the main parts of Europe.

FE sure is huge, i'd also argue it's the "cheapest" of the current games to produce content for. Rather static, 2D instead of 3D like DL and Mario Kart.
 
Roliq

Roliq

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Sep 23, 2018
6,237
Too bad Pokemon Masters it's a separated thing, i would like to know how much people have spent on it
 
Fisico

Fisico

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,106
Paris
mazi said:
  • The majority ($656 million, 61%) has come from Fire Emblem Heroes.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Just to give a rough idea : They would need to sell 10 millions of "regular" Fire Emblem games to make the same amount of money.
Or wording it differently, with 2 million sales Fire Emblem 3 Houses would make around ~120 million $, not even a fifth of what Heroes did.

Of course there are various others factors to take into account as well (development/running costs, additional income through dlc/season pass for 3 Houses, but you get the idea)
 
abellwillring

abellwillring

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,966
Austin, TX
Nightbird said:
Considering that FE:H is celebrating its 3rd anniversary this week, that 656M$ is not much...

It's not bad, but not that great either.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Think of it this way. There's a new traditional Fire Emblem game every 2-3 years. A normal game would need to sell over 10m copies to make a similar amount of revenue. FE Heroes is probably in the top 20 mobage over that period of time and that's pretty damn impressive.
 
Nightbird

Nightbird

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
3,780
Germany
Limabean01 said:
Really?

You are the first person I've ever seen to not call FE:H a resounding success.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Am I? In that case I will never have a career in market analysis lol.

But seriously.: I only think that way because it is the very first Nintendo gacha game on top on being tied to a Franchise that at the time of release was exploding in popularity.

I can't shake the feeling that even tough it is successful, I feel like it's not as much of a success as it could have been. Especially in comparison with other gacha games.

But maybe that's due to its SRPG gameplay


abellwillring said:
Think of it this way. There's a new traditional Fire Emblem game every 2-3 years. A normal game would need to sell over 10m copies to make a similar amount of revenue. FE Heroes is probably in the top 20 mobage over that period of time and that's pretty damn impressive.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

This is true. Yeah, I think I'm just way too negative about it
 
CaviarMeths

CaviarMeths

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
10,655
Western Canada
- Dragalia Lost generated as much revenue as selling 2 million copies of a $60 game at full price. That puts it ahead of Xenoblade Chronicles 2, but behind Fire Emblen: Three Houses.

- Fire Emblem Heroes is probably more profitable than Awakening, Fates, and Three Houses combined.
 
Etrian Darkness

Etrian Darkness

Member
Oct 29, 2017
4,515
UK
Recently got back hard into FE Heroes. The game sure is a lot better than it was during book 1, there's so much game now in it.
 
abellwillring

abellwillring

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,966
Austin, TX
Blue Hedgehog said:
It's hard to justify spending money in Dragalia Lost when they're pretty generous with the premium currency
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yeah, I have only spent like either $4 or $6 on it (early on) -- I've been able to get so many 5* adventurers and dragons, etc. without spending anything in well over a year. It's a really fun game and they've been so generous with it. I've still not played any of Cygames' other titles since PoGo, FEH and DL are more than enough for me but I hear they're similarly kind in those too.
 
Machine Law

Machine Law

Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,122
I redownloaded FE Heroes recently and I've been playing it soo much. Don't plan on spending any money on it though.
 
Zyrox

Zyrox

One Winged Slayer Corrupted by Vengeance
Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,648
Should have put Veronica in Smash instead of Byleth.
 
Aaronrules380

Aaronrules380

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
22,574
Nightbird said:
Am I? In that case I will never have a career in market analysis lol.

But seriously.: I only think that way because it is the very first Nintendo gacha game on top on being tied to a Franchise that at the time of release was exploding in popularity.

I can't shake the feeling that even tough it is successful, I feel like it's not as much of a success as it could have been. Especially in comparison with other gacha games.

But maybe that's due to its SRPG gameplay




This is true. Yeah, I think I'm just way too negative about it
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I mean FE probably could make more money if it was more predatory. It's very generous with it's premium currency, doesn't distinguish between free and paid orbs like other gacha games do, gives a lot of free pulls (you can pull one unit free on any banner), rates on good units are way better than games like FGO and There are no non unit summons to clog up the pools
 

unfashionable

Member
Oct 29, 2017
2,072
Not sure what to think of Kart. Seems low but OTOH they didnt have MP, and if their subscription model is a substantial portion then it may have decent legs
 
Bigkrev

Bigkrev

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,358
Rough math from the numbers provided looks like Fire Emblem has $38ish dollars per user download, while Mario Run has something like 30 cents per user download
If you wondered why pay once for everything games don't exist anymore outside of Apple Arcade, there is your answer.
 
Busaiku

Busaiku

Teyvat Traveler
Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,650
mazi said:
looks like dragalia has somewhat recovered after a meh launch, no?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The launch was good, but then it stumbled afterwards, and continues to.
It reached $100 million in July, and has only earned $23 million since.
Between July and through September, it only earned $6 million.
So $17 million since October, with Halloween, Christmas, and New Years events.

All SensorTower estimates.
 
Nome

Nome

Designer / Self-requested ban
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
3,312
NYC
Nightbird said:
Considering that FE:H is celebrating its 3rd anniversary this week, that 656M$ is not much...

It's not bad, but not that great either.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Revenue isn't Nintendo's primary goal with their mobile titles though.
Also, given that Nintendo doesn't invest much in user acquisition (also because they get generous platform featuring with every release), all of these games save for DMW likely gave a positive ROI.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.