Nintendo makes almost $1.8 billion from mobile game sales despite pandemic

Since dipping its toe in the mobile gaming pool in late 2017, home-console giant Nintendo has grown into one of the biggest sharks in the water, earning nearly $1.8 billion, according to MobileGamer.biz.

Among Nintendo’s lineup of moneymakers, Fire Emblem Heroes stands head and shoulders above the pack with about $983 million in sales all by itself – 55% of all total earnings and a $700 million lead over Nintendo’s second-most popular offering.

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp and Mario Kart Tour sit in second and third place, separated by only about $6 million in sales and both sitting above the $270 million thresholds.

The Animal Crossing title does have about a two-year head start over Mario Kart Tour, so it may find itself eclipsed for second place in the near future.

The Nintendo slate of mobile games is rounded out by Dragailia Lost, Super Mario Run, and Dr. Mario World ranking fourth through sixth, respectively.

Interestingly, Super Mario Run sits in fifth place among all moneymakers at just $87 million earned, but it leads the pack in terms of total global downloads at 307 million.

Impressively, Fire Emblem Heroes is a distant fourth place in terms of total downloads with just 18 million, making the earning discrepancy even greater.

Super Mario Run has earned about 28 cents per user, compared with a whopping $54 per user for Fire Emblem Heroes.

The latter title is also unbelievably consistent, having earned about $154 million both in 2019 and 2020 and another $145 million last year, only about a 5.8% drop.