Now that Nintendo is moving into the mobile scene, we’re seeing the company experiment with the various mobile payment methods that other companies have experimented with since the big mobile boom. Pokemon Go and Fire Emblem: Heroes are on the free-to-play scale, while Super Mario Run came with a flat $9.99 fee.
Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima revealed how well the company’s mobile games have been doing in his most recent interview with the WSJ. Since that’s a pay-to-read publication, we’ll share the WSJ journalists tweets instead.
Nintendo: Mario Run, iOS and Android together, almost there to reach 150 million downloads.
— Takashi Mochizuki (@mochi_wsj) April 27, 2017
What’s interesting about this is that Nintendo has stated publicly that they prefer Super Mario Run’s payment model since it doesn’t feature any micro-transactions after you buy the app. Despite that, free-to-play really is the king of revenue as it seems as though Fire Emblem: Heroes is much more profitable than Super Mario Run for Nintendo.
Nintendo chief: # of Fire Emblem downloads less than 1/10 of Mario, but revenue is bigger than Mario.
— Takashi Mochizuki (@mochi_wsj) April 27, 2017
This information gives the head honchos at Nintendo quite a bit to digest, since it’s obvious that the free-to-play model is the most revenue-generating for the mobile market. Expect Nintendo’s future games to go with this model, but perhaps they’ll try try the flat fee again with a lower price. How many of those 150 million downloads could Nintendo have converted if they’d started with a lower price?
Nintendo eShop Card – $20
