Bloomberg is reporting today that Nintendo has apparently decided against big new mobile gaming projects after disappointing results financially from the crowded market. Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa said this month that “We are not necessarily looking to continue releasing many new applications for the mobile market.”
While other companies mobile games were blooming during the coronavirus pandemic, some of Nintendo’s have been on the decline including Super Mario Run and the Mario Kart Tour’s Subscription Pass. Nintendo has simply been having trouble finding the right money making model, with the company not wishing to ask players to spend a lot in games in fear of ruining the brand.
“Since the release of Mario Kart Tour in fall 2019, Nintendo’s mobile pipeline is empty,” said Serkan Toto, a mobile games consultant in Tokyo. “In a sense, Nintendo’s enormous success on console reduced the need and the pressure to put resources into mobile.”
“You need an active long-running franchise with hundreds of attractive characters to make a good gacha game and then you’d need to keep adding new characters each month to retain players,” Yasuda said. “Fire Emblem is the only Nintendo franchise capable of doing that.”
“New smartphone games will come, but it’s very likely these will be just alibi releases to appease shareholders,” said Toto.