Nintendo’s mobile titles help strengthen its IP and fan base, despite not accounting for a significant percentage of the overall business the company says. During an investor Q&A, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa spoke about the impact of the company’s mobile titles.
Nintendo’s strategy for releasing mobile titles, like Fire Emblem Heroes, and Mario Kart Tour, is to increase the overall interest and player base for those IPs, potentially bringing more people to the console releases. Furukawa specifically cited Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp as introducing many “female consumers and U.S. consumers,” to the series, who would later buy Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
Furukawa also said that sales from mobile games “do not account for a very large percentage of Nintendo’s overall business,” but the games do lead to the creation of more Nintendo Accounts, strengthening the business overall. A recent report suggested that Nintendo would begin winding down the release of mobile games, due to them not seeing as much growth as the Nintendo Switch.
Also during the Q&A, director Shinya Takahashi noted that while some production development has been slowed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, no games planned to be released in the current fiscal year have been affected currently. However, Takahashi also said that if the impact of COVID-19 is prolonged or becomes more severe, games planned for the current fiscal year could be affected.
Nintendo’s most recent mobile title is Mario Kart Tour, which had an extremely successfully launch. Nintendo’s next game, Paper Mario: The Origami King, launches later this month on July 17 for Nintendo Switch. You can learn about the game and its pre-order bonuses in our Paper Mario: The Origami King pre-order guide.
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