Tag: nintendo

It seems users may already be growing bored with the video game company’s first smartphone app.

Almost two months ago, Nintendo entered the mobile gaming market, launching its first game app, Miitomo. Unsurprisingly, it was a huge success when it first hit app stores, surpassing 4 million active users in mid April and pulling in an impressive $280,000 per week for the company. Since its launch, the Nintendo mobile game has had over 10 million downloads. However, it seems to have lost momentum, and interest for the game appears to be waning, turning this somewhat social network-style game into a ghost town.

Currently, only an estimated 2.5 million users play Miitomo.

A recent study conducted by Survey Monkey Intelligence found that while the game has had 10 million downloads, not all of these players have returned to the game. In fact, according to the study, it is estimated that presently only 2.5 million users actively play it, which is a low number considering the millions of downloads the game has had.

Furthermore, the study found that when compared to two popular mobile games, King’s, Candy Crush Jelly Saga, and Supercell’s, Clash Royale, Miitomo is only played half as much per week. It also has a fairly high weekly churn rate at 48% compared to Clash Royale’s 20% rate and Candy Crush Jelly Saga’s 23%.

This is problematic for Nintendo because since the game is like a social network, the gameplay relies on users interacting with one another. Therefore, once the user-base drops, there isn’t too much that can be done to maintain interest.

The fact that this Nintendo mobile game also functions like a social app could be one of its downfalls.

One of the reasons why Miitomo may be declining so rapidly is due to the fact that it is a social app/game hybrid. Once a player’s Mii is fully customized, all that’s left for a player to do is explore little quests and play the app’s solitary games. While players can use their Mii to interact with other players, unless players want to interact with random strangers more than their friends, it likely won’t be that fun.

That said, it’s still too early to tell if Miitomo will become the Japanese gaming giant’s first mobile app blunder. Nevertheless, even if it turns out to be a bust, this Nintendo mobile game won’t be the company’s last.

This came as good news for the Japanese tech giant that had been holding onto its policy for only console games.

Nintendo recently announced that the first mobile game it ever launched managed to draw over one million users within the span of three days that followed its initial release.

The first mobile gaming experience offered by Nintendo was in the form of its “Miitomo” app.

The Miitomo mobile game is an interactive experience that makes it possible for users to be able to design their own Mii avatars. It released this app in order to be able to position itself to better compete with its rivals. Through the use of this mobile app, smartphone users are able to change the outfit worn by their avatar through in-app purchases. They can also use their avatars to interact with those that have been created by friends or other mobile application users.

Within the mobile game, the avatars also interact with the user him/herself and share the answer with friends.

For example, the avatar may ask one of the players of the mobile games what they did over the weekend or “What is your favorite food?” When the player answers, it is shared with the other characters selected by that player.

The game app was originally launched in Japan on a Thursday and by the following Saturday it had already broken the one million user mark, according to a company spokesperson. At the time of the writing of this article, she had also said that there weren’t any updated figures to release. That said, following a national holiday on the weekend of the achievement of the first million users, the stock markets opened on the Tuesday to send Nintendo’s shares upward by a striking 8.18 percent.

The official Twitter account for the mobile game stated that Nintendo had been quite surprised with the number of players who were instantly attracted to the app. As Sony and Microsoft continued to outpace Nintendo’s sales in terms of consoles and related games, the three giants have now moved into the app sphere for mobile devices where they are competing with thousands of other developers with cheap and even entirely free games.