Nintendo 'Retreating' From Mobile Gaming Market

[deckard666]

Console gaming too? Another 50 million and that statement will be true but it’s very unlikely to catch up with the PS4.

It took the PS4 7 years to get there and with the PS5 and new xbox round the corner I bet its sales have tanked big time lately...The Switch has hit half the PS4 sales in a year less than the PS4 took and with no new Switch on the horizon I cant see its demand slowing down...I cant imagine it will overtake the PS2 lifetime sales as that was on the market for 13 years ! but I think it will beat the PS4.

 

[deckard666]

Nintendo's problem is every other console after N64 is a dud.

N64 - Win
Gamecube - Loss
Wii - Win
Wii U - Loss
Switch - Win

We'll see what happens next. Logic would indicate that you just beef up the Switch for next-gen, but Nintendo always seems to try something new and waste a generation when it flops.

Been around a long long time (130 years in the leisure industry) and done plenty of interesting things along the way....Never bet against the big N - They always have had their complete domination in the hand held market to keep them going up to now....

 

[ackmondual]

The fact their games required an always online connection is what really killed them for me.

For Super Mario Run, I was willing to put up with this to not have to deal with excessive MTX/IAP, and the worse parts of freemium/f2p that dominates the mobile markets these days

Mario Run was ok. The rest I couldn’t bother with. Mario Kart was laughably bad, I thought, for a brand that prides itself on quality.

I was hoping Nintendo was going to make mobile gaming what it should have been before pay as you play won out. Instead, they offered half-baked attempts and eventually just went all in on the pay to play model.

Im sad they didn’t change the market, but I won’t miss the games. I will miss what could have been instead.

Super Mario Run was excellent. A lot of the whiny reviews on the mobile markets were expecting Nintendo to shoehorn an entire Mario game into a mobile device. Minimalizing the scope of the game and its controls to a few buttons worked out pretty well. Ofc, Nintendo isn't going to release their full fledged vg on mobile when they sell their own hardware. Makes a much sense as Apple letting other manufacturers make iOS devices. There was much confusion that it was free to demo, but to unlock the full game would be a 1-time $10 payment.

 

[ackmondual]

Super Mario Run was fun, for the first few weeks. But since it launched, they’ve added no new levels, except the repetitive remix 10 game. And considering it only has 24 levels it got very boring, very quickly.

They instead should have gone with a modern take on Super Mario 3 with tonnes of levels and variation instead of a quick win arcade game.

Good luck trying to sell this for less than $5, which is the max price for impulse buy on the mobile markets.

Also, FWIW, after the initial release, but before Remix 10, they did release the world [star] levels (9 of them)

Two things:
1. Switch has buttons, which are crucial to more complex games than candy crush.
2. Nintendo doesn't have to pay 30% of revenue to Apple

3. Nintendo has complete control over their hardware and software. Some devs have spent a large amount of time updating their games to be compatible with a new major iOS release. It's gotten bad enough that some have left that market.

 

[ackmondual]

the wii U was financially a loss mostly because the messed-up advertising (and ofcourse the bad CPU) However, it's much better than many think. For example, it runs Zelda: BotW just fine. Now, show me an iOS game as extensive as that title...

The late Satoru Iwata took a voluntary 50% pay cut due to the Wii U's poor sales! Many C-level execs also take a voluntary 30% to 50% pay cut!

We have some smart cookies here as to why Nintendo is folding tent and going home on mobile.

I could not believe Mario Kart’s business model when Apple Arcade was right there at the same price point.

AFAIK, there's something about the 's' word, subscriptions, that gets people to do a double-take.

i like mario run and mario kart. It feels like they gave up on run. They haven’t added any actual content in years. Mario kart feels like they care about it with constant updates. I really appreciate the transparency they have with their “regarding known issues” section.

Eh... I don't blame them. A one time $10 charge, but have to provide free content, doesn't really work out that well in the long run. I'd be up to paying another $10 for new content, but the market probably wouldn't. Go figure why freemium rulez!

 

[thebri87]

It's been five years since Nintendo first announced its foray into mobile gaming on iOS and other platforms. Although the company has seen some success in the business, it's also seen some misfires, and this week Bloomberg is reporting that Nintendo is now "retreating" from its mobile gaming plans.

For the near future, Nintendo will now focus on apps that have already been released. In terms of potential new Nintendo apps, developer partner DeNA has mentioned recently that players shouldn't expect a new game until near the end of the current fiscal year.

Although Nintendo saw high profits with titles like Fire Emblem Heroes, the company's recent earnings have been declining. In total, Nintendo released iOS apps like Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, Dragalia Lost, Mario Kart Tour, Super Mario Run, and Dr. Mario World from 2016 through 2019.

According to Sensor Tower, three of Nintendo's biggest apps saw decreasing revenue from February through May, 2020 (including Dragalia Lost, Super Mario Run, and Fire Emblem Heroes). This was during a period when mobile apps were otherwise noticing an uptick in user engagement due to stay-at-home orders.

In the beginning, Nintendo kicked off the smartphone gaming initiative following struggling Wii U console sales, hoping that the booming mobile gaming market could help prop up poor console numbers. In the wake of the success of the Nintendo Switch, a mobile/home console hybrid released in 2017, it seems that Nintendo has less of a reason to keep up with releasing games for smartphones and tablets.

Most recently, "Animal Crossing New Horizons" on the Switch has seen massive success. In May, the game became the best-selling entry in the franchise with 13.4 million units sold, and is the fastest selling Switch game overall.



Nintendo originally intended to launch around three apps per year, but they were continuously delayed and players saw longer and longer wait times between releases for new games. When they did finally launch, many arrived with criticisms about an abundance of in-app purchases and poor controls.

Now, according to mobile gaming analyst Serkan Toto, new Nintendo smartphone games will come down the line, "but it's very likely these will be just alibi releases to appease shareholders."

Article Link: Nintendo 'Retreating' From Mobile Gaming Market

Good! I’m glad Nintendo’s pulling out of the mobile platform. Consumers are just so f*cked in the head that they have the nerve to complain over FREE games. Yes there are in app purchases but the games are still free. Spoiled morons.