After investing heavily in the smartphone games niche, Nintendo is playing it safe. So much so that the future of this activity is less and less assured.
From October 4, players of Mario Kart Tour will no longer be entitled to new content, in particular these circuits inspired by metropolises and additional characters. Future seasons of the game will simply recycle content already offered. A godsend for all those who missed a particular circuit, but it also means that the title will lose freshness.
Content recycling for Mario Kart Tour
Released four years ago, Mario Kart Tour was developed by the DeNA studio on behalf of Nintendo. It is one of the most profitable mobile games for the Japanese group: according to data collected by Appmagic, it has earned $243 million and has 230 million downloads on iOS and Android.
The adaptation of the famous kart game would have exceeded Animal Crossing: Pocket Campbut she still remains far from the champion in all categories, namely Fire Emblem Heroeswhich would have allowed Nintendo to collect $810 million.
Since 2016, revenues from mobile games have amounted to $1.5 billion for Nintendo, for nearly 740 million downloads. Impressive figures… but not that much in the end. Of the six titles released on mobile platforms, two have been withdrawn, while the very first, Super Mario Runis rarely updated.
During the presentations of its quarterly results, the mobile activity is barely mentioned. And last year, Nintendo removed the gacha mechanic from Mario Kart Tour (a lottery to win new random elements), perhaps a sign of the publisher’s disinterest in this title… and for mobile games in general? This remains to be seen: in November 2022, the company announced the creation of a joint venture with DeNA to boost this activity…