Nintendo took their first foray into mobile games with Super Mario Run in 2016. Still, an analysis of the spending into their games has revealed that revenue generated from in-app purchases from players has reached $1 billion.
The report comes from data analysts Sensor Tower, who have previously investigated many trends in video game spending in the mobile market, including Pokémon GO’s amount of revenue. However, the Niantic developed Pokémon AR collector or any other Pokémon game is not included in this report.
The games referenced as part of this include Super Mario Run, Fire Emblem Heroes, Dr. Mario World, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, Mario Kart Tour, and Dragalia Lost, with Fire Emblem way ahead of the other games in this list raking in an astronomical $656 million. However, this would make sense with the game now three years old.
The latest mobile release Mario Kart Tour, which launched in September last year, has already reached $86 million in players purchasing microtransactions in-game. Super Mario Run remains that the most downloaded of the six titles.
The only game of the set which it could be argued has been a flop is Dr. Mario World, which as a puzzle game, perhaps suffers from the heavier competition in the mobile space while also being a more niché franchise within Nintendo’s catalog. That said, the signs for Nintendo’s mobile titles continues to produce good numbers. The report also unsurprisingly confirms that the majority of spending comes from the Japanese market, accounting for 54% of the total revenue.
The report follows Pokémon GO producing record financials for 2019, meaning that the investment that Nintendo has been making in the mobile space appears to be paying dividends.
