A few days ago, a new Nintendo mobile game was released. In the American App Store, the project soared to the first place in downloads faster than Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. However, he lost his leadership much faster.
Background of history
Nintendo has been striving to gain a foothold in the mobile market since 2016. She succeeds with varying success. There are hits, but most of the released projects cannot boast of a box office that is crazy for Japanese projects.
The main commercial hit of the company on mobile is the role—playing Fire Emblem Heroes. To date, the game has earned about $ 500 million. Like most other Nintendo mobile games, it was created in close collaboration with DeNA.
It cannot be said that Nintendo is completely dissatisfied with the partnership. After all, the combined box office of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp and Super Mario Run, two more projects developed jointly with DeNA, has long been more than $ 100 million. However, this is incomparable with the success of Pokémon Go, with $2.5 billion of which only interest reached Nintendo through The Pokémon Company.
Therefore, for the last year and a half, Nintendo has been entering into partnerships with new companies. Dr. Mario World is just the fruit of one of these new alliances.
New partner
Nintendo has made a name for itself in the console market, attracting a new, previously non-playing audience. However, the company has not yet flirted with casual players in mobile (we are talking about an established group that prefers puzzles). Dr. Mario World — was supposed to be the first attempt.
For such a project, a partner with the appropriate background was needed. So the choice of Nintendo settled on LINE, which is primarily known for the casual game-billionaire Disney Tsum Tsum.
The new partnership became known this winter. The release was scheduled for the summer.
The appearance of Dr. Mario World
The project was “rolled out” for two days. On July 9, the game appeared in some regions on iOS. On July 10, it became available on both platforms in 60 regions.
Russia, by the way, was bypassed this time. Perhaps we will have the game later. The lack of priority can be understood. According to DataMagic, Nintendo mobile games are not in demand in Russia. Since 2016, our mobile market has generated only about $270 thousand for the company.
On the day of the launch of sales on both platforms, Dr. Mario World topped the download chart in the USA. As our colleagues note with PocketGamer.biz , according to the starting rate of downloads, the game even overtook the recently released Harry Potter: Wizards Unite.
The problem is that the project, according to App Annie, did not hold the lead on iOS and on the second day fell to fifth place in downloads. The lack of dynamics in revenue growth is even more alarming. If the already mentioned Harry Potter: Wizards Unite started gaining cash every day from the start, then Dr. Mario World is still showing negative dynamics.
In any case, it is very early to draw far-reaching conclusions. However, Dr. Mario World may well turn out to be far from such a successful entry into the casual market as Nintendo would like.
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