After 7 years of mobile games, Nintendo was finally willing to give up

Some time ago, the mobile game "Lost Dragon Covenant" jointly developed and operated by Nintendo and Cygames suddenly issued an official announcement. The content is probably after the game will be closed for a period of time after the game plot is over.

Mobile game care is not a big deal, but in the small hair, this may marked that Ren Tiantian is gradually withdrawing from the field of mobile games.

A large part of the bad friends may have a question: "What? Isn't Nintendo play a host and handheld game? Where does it come from?"

Indeed, in early 2010, various game manufacturers were marching towards the mobile game market. Only Nintendo seemed to be completely interested in doing this.

In 2011, the then president Iwata Iwa Toshiko bluntly said in an interview. "We didn't think about it at all. If we did that, Nintendo would no longer be Nintendo."

At that time, the players thought that Nintendo was properly "the industry's conscience" and kept the last pure land of the game.

In fact, there was a lot of opposition inside Ren T positive. After all, everyone can see more money from mobile games, but Iwa Cong dare to say that naturally he has his confidence.

In the past ten years, he has led the development of best -selling models such as NDS and Wii, and at the same time participated in game production of well -known IPs such as Selda, Super Mario, and Animal Mori Friends. The industry is called "genius programmers".

With the concept of "developing a simple and fun game" of Iwada, Nintendo was grasped by hardware software, and both hands were hard. In the battle with Microsoft and Sony, he achieved quite good results.

You know NDS is Nintendo's best -selling game equipment, which has sold 150 million units worldwide!

2019 data ▼

What happened to mobile games? I can make money without mobile games!

It is a pity that the reality is fast and painful. After that, Nintendo seems to be poisoned. The sales volume of the two new models of 3DS and Wii U encountered Waterloo, and the software was squeezed and impacted by a large number of mobile games.

The sales of Wii U are far less than expected. The loss brought directly has dragged Nintendo's hind legs. The financial reports in those years were terrible.

Facing the company's continuous year of losses and a decline in the stock price, Iwada finally let go of his persistence and announced in 2015 that he focused on mobile games on mobile games.

Nintendo and mobile service provider DENA reached the equity replacement ▼

But the reality is cruel. Before the genius programmer shows his fist in the field of mobile games, biliary cancer has taken his life.

Then a 65 -year -old man named Jundao Daji hurriedly took over the position of the president, and he had a tragic feeling of "the ancestor's entrepreneurial entrepreneurship and the middle road collapsed."

At an age, Jundao Da can have applied for retirement long ago, but now Nintendo Qunlong has no head. The old backbone employee still resolutely stood out and took over the heavy task.

And he did not live up to the company's expectations for him. During this time, Jundao Daji served as the president, and Nintendo with classic games such as Nintendo Switch and "Legend of Zelda: Best of the Wilderness" and "Mario 8 Deluxe Edition" and other classic games , Stabilizing the chaotic situation.

If Iwada is the "founding of the founding" of Nintendo in the 21st century, then Jundao Daji is "the Lord of ZTE".

What's more, Jundao Da did not forget to realize the blueprint of Iwada's mobile game.

In 2016, Nintendo announced that it would mobile game game "Animal Mori Friends" and "Flame Malmon".

In the same year, two mobile games were also launched, "Miitomo" and "Super Mario Cool Run".

As the first mobile game of the old appointment, "MIITOMO" focuses on entertainment social networking, and the character design also uses MII (Nintendo's virtual character service) character shape.

The gameplay is very simple. After designing his own character image, players need to answer the questions mentioned by their characters every time they log in, and gradually enrich the character of this character.

For example, after asking me "What do I like best to eat", I replied chicken legs.

After that, if my friend comes to interact with my role, you can choose the corresponding question, and then know the answer.

To put it plainly, this is a "True Adventure" game with automatic answer function, but the problem is set by the system. Players have entered the answer in advance.

"MIITOMO" is a game for downloading free items, but Nintendo does not design too many gold points in this game. It is to buy some virtual costumes. Players can't spend much money.

"Super Mario Cool Run" is to buy a parkour game. You can unlock the relevant card by paying at a time.

The downloads of these two games were very high when launching, but the fate later was very different.

"Super Mario Cool Run" broke through 40 million downloads in 4 days, setting a record of the highest download record of AppStore at that time.

So far, it has brought $ 76 million in revenue to Nintendo, and ranked first among the "25th Japanese mobile games in the minds of foreigners".

However, "Miitomo" began to lose a lot after a few months of launch, and it was announced in 2018 after 2 years. I personally think that the reason for its failure is actually the core of the social mobile game -online interaction, which is very important for players.

After all, the system automatically generates a limited question, and it is easy to make players tired of players.

Both games are actually only Nintendo's water testing work, but the success of "Super Mario Cool Run" has given Jundao a great confidence.

He said at the end of 2016 that Nintendo had regarded the mobile game business as a "third pillar" and plans to launch 2-3 mobile games each year in the future.

The "Animal Forest Friendship Association: Pocket Camp", which was launched in 2017, also included the elements of blind boxes, which is the only gold point in the entire game.

In the same year, the "Flame Malmon: Heroes", which had jumped for a few months, was officially launched.

"Flame Malmon: Heroes" is Nintendo's first "Gold Pumping Card" game. The ability to make money by this type of game is not comparable to those leisure and buying off games in front.

In the first year of the launch, the revenue of "Flame Malmon: Heroes" reached $ 295 million, and the five -year -old revenue was 959 million US dollars. It is Nintendo's most profitable mobile game.

Maybe you will say "Pokemon Go in 2017! "Isn't it all made billions of dollars? Why not count it?

In fact, Ren Tiantian just gave Niantic authorized, and it had nothing to do with it, so these money was basically made by Niantic.

However, according to common sense, if it is a general game company, after taste the sweetness, it will definitely continue to make gold mobile games.

But Nintendo is different.

In 2018, after Jundao Daji stabilized Nintendo's situation, he handed the president's location to Kagawa Taro.

Generally, the new president will definitely want to make some performance to prove himself. For Kawagawa Taro, the mobile game business is actually a good opportunity.

However, the later "Doctor Mario" and "Mario Railway", there are very few gold elements, but it is the kind of "non -necessary gold".

Among the series of mobile games he launched after the upper position, only the "Lost Dragon Covenant" mentioned at the beginning was a special case.

It is the only original IP in the field of mobile games, and it is also their second bloodline pure gold card mobile game.

Although its income is not as high as "Flame Malley: Heroes", it also ranked second for a long time.

It was not until the NS version of "Animal Forest Friends" and the mobile game was launched on the line that its income was surpassed by the "Animal Morning Friends: Pocket Camp".

In the operation of "Lost Dragon Covenant", in fact, we can also see the attitude towards the mobile game business.

"Lost Dragon Covenant" is a product jointly cooperated with Nintendo and mobile game Cygames. The operation is mainly Cygames.

At the beginning, the "Lost Dragon Covenant" card drawing system was actually very pit.

Because the combat effectiveness in the game wants to improve, it needs four things like "characters, dragons, dragons, and weapons". Among them, they need to be obtained by drawing cards except weapons.

General mobile games will separate these items from three pools to allow players to strengthen their cards targeted.

There is only one card pool in "Lost Dragon Covenant", which is mixed with three types of items, and is known as the "three -in -one poison pool".

As if I wanted to go to the Gacha to twist a few small toys of "Pokemon", the developer added "Super Mario" and "Animal Mori Friends" to this capsule machine. Essence Essence

This operation means that the cost of the player's gold is unlimited, which is almost a bottomless hole, which makes the players complain.

However, this is also the usual approach of mobile game manufacturers -to increase revenue through various routines.

The festival limited card pool is even more like this ▼

It is said that making money is more, and Nintendo can also share more money. It should be the result of both the two major companies.

But in the end, Nintendo couldn't stand it anymore. He took the initiative to ask Cygames to increase the drop rate of the props, and also modified the card pool and the guarantee mechanism to save money for the majority of players.

Cygames is helpless about this, and even internal employees have complained that if they let them manage the game separately, they will make more money.

That year, Cygames took the initiative to reduce the expected financial report revenue, because the expected income of "Lost Dragon Covenant" decreased.

However, Nintendo does not want to make money by mobile games. In 2018, Kawagawa Juntar said that he hoped that the company could launch more mobile games, with an annual income of 100 billion yen (910 million US dollars).

But in fact on September 25, 2019, after launching the "Mario Motors: Tour" mobile game, Nintendo has not launched any new mobile games for almost three years.

Nintendo's attitude towards mobile games may change with "gathering!" Animal Senyou Club is related.

In 2020, Tomori's explosion made Nintendo's revenue and profits reaching a new high, and the mobile game side was tepid, even not even as good as the 3DS platform's income, forming a sharp contrast. Mobile game income is $ 1418 million,

Switch platform income 9.344 billion US dollars ▼

At this moment, Nintendo can see that his mobile game is a younger brother in the mobile game industry, but the host is particularly able to fight. Isn't it clear at a glance at who should focus on?

So the current Nintendo no longer mention mobile games, it seems to be forgotten by everyone in silence, although the mobile game business has brought more than $ 1 billion in income to Nintendo over the years.

According to the analysis of data agencies, Nintendo's mobile game income today is about $ 7 million per month, and it is less than 100 million US dollars a year, far from Kawagawa Taro's original goals.

According to this situation, the old mobile games come to the end of life, and this month's income will continue to decline.

However, Nintendo should not care about these. After all, IPs such as "Mario", "Star Caber", and "Selda" have stable output, and the sales volume is not worried. Switch sold more than 100 million units. Essence

In fact, this is also very good. After all, Nintendo's entering mobile game business is also a helpless move that year, because Nintendo's corporate nature is not very good at mobile games.

On the one hand, Nintendo has always occupied the market in the sales method of "software and hardware matching". Through research and development of new equipment and special games to achieve gameplay improvement.

However, in mobile games, Nintendo has neither mobile phone nor mobile games. He can only design games according to the habits of mobile game users. Naturally, it will be a little dissatisfied with the soil and water.

On the other hand, although Nintendo has experienced so many twists and turns over the years, he has changed three presidents. The core concept of "fun" has not been discarded.

Therefore, Nintendo only played casual games in the field of mobile games. The only gold games were also raised to the drop rate by them. They were afraid that players would spend too much money.

This approach will naturally make players really like the game.

For example, after the "Lost Dragon Covenant" announced the control, what I saw in the relevant communities was all blessings and gratitude to the game, and it was very harmonious.

Even the comment area of ​​the application store is well -received, which is completely different from the scenes after the unsightly mobile game that eats unsightly mobile games.

This is why players can always believe Nintendo, because we may not know what it will do, but we all know that it will not do anything.

For example, it will bring players a host with only 720P resolution in this era, but it will never force players to go to gold, and will not forget to bring a pure game experience to players.

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