Nintendo Says Mobile Game Profits Are 'Not Satisfactory'

Nintendo may have had record profits with the Nintendo Switch, but that doesn't mean its ignoring other parts of the business. In its annual financial briefing it called out its iOS and Android games such as Super Mario Run and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, as not having reached a "satisfactory profit point yet." No surprise since the company earlier claimed that Super Mario Run revenue failed to meet expectations. With Mario Kart Tour out at some point this year, it could help stem the tide. That, and its collaboration with Cygames on Dragalia Lost.

"For the smart-device business, we will continue the services for existing applications while also releasing new applications in order to increase Nintendo’s presence in this business. The efforts we have made to date have yielded certain responses to our goal of expanding the number of people who have access to Nintendo IP. Even so, we have not reached a satisfactory profit point yet, so our goal is to further expand the scale of this business to develop it into one of the pillars of revenue," the company said in its earnings report.

Earlier, Nintendo announced that the Nintendo Switch sales stand at 17.79 million sold worldwide since launch during its 2017 fiscal year earnings results with 15.05 million sold during the 2017 financial year. In addition to this, Nintendo Switch game sales have been solid. Super Mario Odyssey sold 10.41 million units, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe: sold 9.22 million units, and Splatoon 2 sold 6.02 million units. Including titles from other game publishers, a total of 12 games selling at least one million have emerged on the Nintendo Switch. The combined software sales results for this fiscal year reached 63.51 million units.

Moving on to the Nintendo 3DS, sales for Nintendo’s portable have bee good too, reaching 6.40 million for the fiscal year. In terms of games, Pokemon Ultra Sun and Pokemon Ultra Moon sold 7.51 million units, while overall sales totalled 35.64 million units.

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