Fire Emblem Heroes has a tenth of Super Mario Run’s downloads, but made more money

With being less recognizable

According to Takashi Mochizuki of the Wall Street Journal, Nintendo has provided updated mobile sales figures at a recent financial briefing Q & A. They’re not exact, but we now know that in total, Fire Emblem Heroes and Super Mario Run have obtained a 150 million (free) download milestone. Yet, the former yielded higher revenue, despite selling “less than one tenth” compared to the latter.

So if we go by “less than one tenth,” as a guide and both sold 150 million, then Fire Emblem sold less than 15 million. Even so, the idea of preying on whales (people who spend lots of money, typically referring to a gambling scenario) is real. I know folks who dropped $100 or more hoping to get a “five star pull” of their favorite character — there’s even YouTube videos of the practice. Such is the way of the increasingly popular Gashapon, or “Gasha” games, adopted from the capsule toy market.

On the other side of the equation, while Mario’s recognition is believable, the idea of spending $10 on a mobile game is foreign to some. Still I wouldn’t call it a failure as it likely recouped its development costs and then some, and Apple clearly helped market it in their stores, so it’s a win in terms of brand recognition, as a sort of “we’re here” approach to mobile.

Despite all this, Nintendo claims that they’re not going to go with the more predatory Heroes style in the future. But they can always change their tune if say, a future Super Luigi Run under preforms.

Takashi Mochizuki [Twitter]