After nearly five years, (sans Pokémon), Nintendo is reportedly exiting from the mobile games market.
Featured games such as Super Mario Run, Dragalia Lost, Fire Emblem Heroes, and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp have enjoyed modest to critical reviews. However, they have failed to capture the mobile market overall, with the likes of PUBG Mobile and Rise of Kingdoms.
According to Serkan Toto, a mobile games consultant in Tokyo, via Bloomberg, he said “since the release of Mario Kart Tour in fall 2019, Nintendo’s mobile pipeline is empty. In a sense, Nintendo’s enormous success on console reduced the need and the pressure to put resources into mobile”. In other words, the Switch’s success decreased the incentive to release more mobile games.
Toto might have a point. Nintendo’s mobile strategy was in part due to the commercial failure of the Wii U. With the obvious success of the Switch (sold 58.3 million units worldwide) and Animal Crossing: New Horizons (nearly 12 million copies in the first twelve days), Nintendo doesn’t seem the need to release mobile games in the near future. While Nintendo made over $1 billion in mobile games, 60% of that was from Fire Emblem Heroes, according to Gamespot.
YouTube gaming influencer Richard Masucci (ReviewTechUSA) praised the move. He saw this a “beacon of hope” to see gaming companies to keep selling “dedicated consoles” before cloud gaming, in his view, takes over. Masucci also thought that having Mario mobile games (Kart Tour and Run) were “half-hearted” and “worse than New Coke”.
No news as to whether or not Nintendo will keep updating the current mobile games in the distant future. But the success of the Switch could make Nintendo gamers say “Nintendo mobile games, we hardly knew ye!”
