Numbers don’t lie, and industry analyst Daniel Ahmad has ’em where Nintendo’s suite of mobile games is concerned. Earlier today, Ahmad took to Twitter to share the news that puzzle game revival Dr. Mario World is the lowest-grossing Nintendo mobile game yet. As if to rub salt into the freshly-launched Mario spin-off’s wounds, he also let everyone know that Pokemon GO — a game which launched over three years ago — enjoyed far more success during the month of August.
Dr Mario World is Nintendo's worst performing game to date. Barely breaking the top 500 grossing chart in the US (iOS).
High number of downloads but failure to convert.
Title grossed approx $1m in August 2019. Comp to similar titles in same genre is favorable. pic.twitter.com/McT121tSkw
— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) September 2, 2019
Though it’s noted that Dr. Mario World‘s performance is “favourable” when compared to competitors within its genre, the $1.4 million it earned in its initial month (July, 2019) on the iOS digital storefront is paltry when compared to stablemates Animal Crossing, Dragalia Lost, Super Mario Run, and Fire Emblem Heroes.
The following month of August revenue dropped to just $1 million, with Ahmad referencing a “high number” of downloads for the free-to-play game, which unfortunately for Nintendo did not convert into paying customers. The reasoning for that isn’t immediately clear, though perhaps Nintendo’s reluctance to implement particularly gouging forms of microtransactions has in this instance backfired on their bottom line.
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While Dr. Mario may be in need of some antibiotics himself, there’s certainly nothing wrong with Pokemon GO‘s healthy August performance. The roaming catch-’em-all game had its best month since September 2016 when the Pokemon GO craze was still at its height and largely dominating the news.
That’s no mean feat, and as Ahmad points out, frequent updates from The Pokemon Company and developer Niantic have played no small part in getting aspiring Pokemon Trainers out and about this summer.
Just to put that into perspective. $3 billion gross revenue (which will be reached before the end of the year) is equivalent to selling 50 million copies of a game at $60.
For reference, Pokemon Let's Go for Switch sold 11m units at that price.
(Below does not include August) pic.twitter.com/AGYy5uGZcG
— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) September 2, 2019
The continuing success of Pokemon GO also helps to illustrate just how integral mobile games still are to the current gaming market. As the game approaches a mammoth $3 billion in earnings, which places it in very elite company, Ahmad helps to illustrate the enormity of that figure by stating that a conventional $60 game would need to sell 50 million units in order to match that. Only five games in history have sales exceeding 50 million, those being PUBG, Wii Sports, GTA 5, Minecraft, and Tetris.
