Nintendo: details about mobile games performances, Genyo Takeda retiring, Nintendo Switch
Nintendo mobile games
Today, Nintendo revealed its financial results for Fiscal Year Ended March 31st 2017 (you can find all the details in this post!), and during the usual press conference where said results are revealed, the company shared some additional details.
Let’s start with mobile games, and more precisely Super Mario Run. Tatsumi Kimishima revealed that Super Mario Run is nearing 150 million downloads on Android and iOS combined, which is a pretty good result. Unfortunately, he also confirmed that they’re yet to reach the 10% of paid users threshold, which isn’t surprising since the launch of the Android version added a lot more free users.
As for Fire Emblem Heroes, Tatsumi Kimishima didn’t share any exact number, but explained that downloads were less than 1/10 of Super Mario Run. Since that game is almost at 150 million downloads, we can estimate that Fire Emblem Heroes has been downloaded abut 14 million times (max.)… not too shabby!
What’s more, the game is also generating more revenue, which isn’t surprising: Super Mario Run has a one time-only payment (and a pretty steep one by mobile game standards), while Fire Emblem Heroes has micro-transactions. Those always generate more revenue, and they do so in the long run: there is no limit to the amount of money a user can spend in the game, as long as it is regularly updated with new content.
Source: Nintendo
Via: Takashi Mochizuki (1 / 2 / 3)
Genyo Takeda
Today, Nintendo announced that Genyo Takeda (Representative Director and Technology Fellow, who has been with Nintendo since 1972 and has been responsible for Hardware for many years) would retire on June 29th, at the expiration of his term.
He is to be replaced by Ko Shiota, who will become Director, Senior Executive Officer, and General Manager of Platform Technology Development
Division. He currently is the Executive Officer and General Manager of Platform Technology Development Division. Naturally, that change will only be possible if it gets approved by shareholders at the General Meeting of Shareholders on June 29th.
Source: Nintendo
Nintendo Switch
During today’s press conference, Tatsumi Kimishima talked about the Nintendo Switch, and explained that Nintendo did a lot to raise awareness about how it can offer something new. He even admitted being relieved that consumers seem to have accepted it, unlike the Wii U.
He also revealed that this year, Nintendo would be spending more money on promotion to sell the console, which is inevitably going to have a negative impact on operating profit. Quite interestingly, he finds The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s performance “surprising”, though it does prove Nintendo was right about a good game being able to boost sales.
Source: Wall Street Journal
