Nintendo was slow to get into the mobile scene. They did so with tippy toes, so to speak, with the likes of Super Mario Run in the beginning. They’ve since released several titles in their biggest franchises for mobile devices, adapting them more to the usual mobile tactics. And as it turns out, it’s paid off for them, even if at a relatively slow pace, as combined revenue from their games have now passed $1 billion in lifetime player spending, according to Sensor Tower.

Interestingly, the number one game is Fire Emblem Heroes. While that franchise has grown significantly over the years, it’s still not at the level of a Mario or Zelda on mainline consoles. Heroes has struck a cord though, as a whooping 61% of Nintendo’s total mobile revenue comes from that game alone. Maybe more interesting is how the Mario games are all three battling at the bottom. Even Mario Kart Tour is behind Dragalia Lost and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, though it’s worth noting that Mario Kart Tour hasn’t been out for too long. This list does not include Pokemon titles, which are officially published by The Pokemon Company.

Nintendo hasn’t announced any other mobile efforts as of now, but the company seems to be getting pretty cozy with the market space. It’s inevitable that more IPs will make their way to your iOS and Android devices soon.

Nintendo’s Dr. Mario World may be off to a comparatively slower start than mobile efforts like Super Mario Run and Fire Emblem Heroes. However, its newer IP Dragalia Lost is doing very well. Since launching in September 2018, it’s garnered over $100 million in total player spending according to Sensor Tower.

The spending is across three million downloads and is already more than Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. It’s currently Nintendo’s second highest earning mobile title with Fire Emblem Heroes still in the lead. The latter’s revenue is quite monstrous at this point with $591 million earned since it launched in February 2017.

Of course, Nintendo has other titles in the works for mobile including Mario Kart Tour. The mobile adaptation of the popular kart racing series had a closed beta that concluded on June 4th. Though certain aspects could change down the line, Mario Kart Tour attracted criticism for its gacha mechanics, pay-to-win mechanics and a stamina system that limited how often you could race.

A lot of the focus with Nintendo’s fantasy strategy RPG series is being placed on the upcoming Fire Emblem: Three Houses. We’ve got a slow drip of information about the various characters- the leaders of the titular Houses, for instance, and major supporting characters. It’s not the only Fire Emblem game getting attention, though, as the mobile title, Fire Emblem Heroes, is getting some pretty major updates too. They’re adding several new, darker heroes from the game’s storied history with a new story chapter.

Released for mobile last year, Fire Emblem Heroes has been quite successful and largely well received as being more like the base games than expected (though what level of patience you have for the gacha style is up to you). As you can see from the trailer below, the game will soon add Mareeta, Berkut, Corrin, and Tiki, all with slightly altered looks and new artwork. They will release alongside the A Home Unknown story chapter on May 10th.

Fire Emblem Heroes is available now across all compatible mobile devices. And don’t forget to keep up to date on Fire Emblem: Three Houses news, such as what to expect from characters and mechanics.

Nintendo’s first forays into the mobile market weren’t quite as grand as one might have expected. While Super Mario Run and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp were successes in their own right, they lacked the long-term appeal of many mobile titles. It seems like things are changing, though, based on their latest financial report, which says mobile profits on the rise.

They reported that their revenue from the mobile market has exceeded $400 million (USD), a stiff rise from last year by 17%. A large part of that has been due to the success of Fire Emblem Heroes and their first original mobile property, Dragalia Lost. It makes sense, since both of those games are more in line with what the mobile market usually gravitates toward, from both an aesthetic and gameplay mechanics standpoint- much more so than earlier efforts, at the very least.

With Mario Kart Tour coming sometime this year, and having an Android beta starting soon, Nintendo hopes to keep this momentum going well into the next year. You can also read more about what Nintendo reported about their traditional games’ sales, and where Switch sales are standing.

Nintendo’s mobile efforts have been a little inconsistent so far. While games like Fire Emblem Heroes and Dragalia Lost have done reasonably well, and contributed to a few hundred million dollars in annual review to Nintendo’s bottom line last year, on the whole, it is telling when Fortnite on iOS alone makes more money than all Nintendo mobile games put together.

Put simply, the company is hoping for bigger hits on mobile than what’s they have going right now. Speaking to Japanese outlet Nikkan, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa noted that the company is currently working on multiple smartphone applications, and hopes that these new upcoming games will be “huge hits”. According to Furukawa, this is important, because he expects smartphone gaming to become a “pillar” for Nintendo, in addition to their main console business. That said, he did admit that this could take quite a while.

Personally, as long as Nintendo’s mobile games are kept separate from their console efforts, I have no issues with the company continuing to put some out. If nothing else, it quells the cries from investors who would otherwise want them to go third party.

While Nintendo’s mobile game efforts haven’t been a full fledged world conquering success like many may have expected, they have still mostly done alright. For instance, in the year 2018, Nintendo’s mobile games made $348 in revenue cumulatively, buoyed mostly by Fire Emblem Heroes and the newly launched Dragalia Lost, according to Sensor Tower.

$117 million of that revenue came in the fourth quarter, which is the most revenue Nintendo’s mobile games have generated in a single quarter thus far. As mentioned already, Heroes was the top grossing mobile game, earning about $225 million; Dragalia Lost came in second, with slightly over $50 million earned, and Animal Crossing Pocket Camp rounded out the top three with slightly under $50 million units earned.

Amazingly enough, this revenue from four Nintendo games put together is less than half of what Pokemon GO alone earned last year, which puts into perspective just how a) relatively muted Nintendo’s mobile efforts have been, and b) how massive Pokemon GO really is.

Fire Emblem Heroes has been Nintendo’s most successful mobile game so far. How successful? It’s made them almost half a billion dollars. Analysis firm Sensor Tower reports that the game has made $452 million in revenue since it launched last February.

This tremendous amount of money that the game has made means that it actually single handedly represents about 72% of Nintendo’s mobile game revenues thus far. This share would be higher, but the recently launched Dragalia Lost actually has done well enough for itself that it encroached somewhat on Fire Emblem’s piece of the pie.

Do note, however, that Pokemon GO is not included in this number, since it is not considered a Nintendo mobile game. Niantic develops and manages that game, while The Pokemon Company is who they have to go through for it. From that perspective, given the relative underperformance of games like Super Mario Run and Animal Crossing Pocket Camp, it really isn’t much of a surprise that Fire Emblem Heroes has done as well as it has.

Fire Emblem Heroes has been Nintendo’s biggest success story in the mobile arena so far– surprisingly enough, this game, based on one of the most niche franchises Nintendo has, has gone on to become the company’s biggest money maker on smartphones. How much money is that? Apparently that is $400 million in revenue generated worldwide, per market intelligence company Sensor Tower.

This not only makes Heroes the biggest Nintendo game, mind- which would make it bigger than Animal Crossing Pocket Camp, Super Mario Run, and Miitomo– but also actually bigger than the entire Fire Emblem series so far. Heroes alone has made more money than every Fire Emblem game so far has managed to generate in retail sale revenues.

Presumably, this success will mean Nintendo will look more towards the kind of RNG, lootbox style monetization they followed in Heroes over the other monetization methods they experimented with in their mobile catalog.

One of Nintendo’s more profitable ventures into the mobile market so far, Fire Emblem Heroes has kept a cult following, which tasks players with gathering the many heroes of the series and pitting them against each other in tiny battles. While obstinately still a Fire Emblem game with a stripped down version of its battlefields and mechanics, the real draw of the title comes from the events that offer limited time heroes.

Introduced on the Nintendo Youtube Channel today, the “A Sketchy Summer” event is the newest summoning focus that features new heroes that draw upon the deep wells of um… fan service that populates the series. Linde, Tiki, Takumi, and Camilla all receive new summer variants, drawn to be in swimwear.

You’ll be able to gather these heroes, strictly for the powerful abilities they learn, of course, between July 10, 2018 and August 9, 2018 on either the iOS or Android versions of the game. We’ve included the trailer for the event just below.

Nintendo so far has adopted a very scattershot approach to monetizing its mobile games- Super Mario Run, the very first mobile game it ever released, came with no microtransactions and in game ads, but just a one time payment of $10. On the other hand, Animal Crossing Pocket Camp was free to play, started out with relatively relaxed monetization, before randomized lootboxes were introduced.

Nintendo’s most successful game on mobiles is Fire Emblem Heroes, which, again, is free to play, and uses RNG gatcha elements to generate money (although at the very least it is reasonably relaxed for more casual players). So does that mean this is it? Nintendo will rely on this kind of monetization for all their mobile games going forward?

Speaking to investors at a general briefing, Nintendo’s former President Tatsumi Kimishima noted that this is categorically not the case, and that the company assesses monetization options on a game by game basis based on many considerations, including the intended target audience.

“When deciding how to charge for a smart-device application, we consider each one individually based on factors like the mechanics of the game, the characteristics of the IP it uses, who we think the consumers will be, their needs, and so on,” he said. “With Fire Emblem Heroes, there are many passionate fans of the series, which is especially popular among consumers in their 20s and 30s. So we set the target age to 13 and older, then aimed for a format that would allow consumers to have a deep enjoyment of the game according to their individual play styles. The way we charge for the game is through the purchase of in-game items called Orbs. Orbs are used in a kind of lottery system that randomly determines which character the user will obtain. That said, we clearly indicate the probabilities for obtaining each character within the game, and we employ a mechanic that prevents consumers from spending very high amounts.

“With regards to the smart-device business, we are pursuing several goals, one of which is increasing the opportunities for consumers all over the world to come into contact with Nintendo IP. Super Mario Run has already been downloaded by over 200 million people worldwide, making it an incredibly important application from the perspective of reaching consumers. Another one of our goals is for this to have a synergistic effect on our integrated hardware and software business. With these sorts of goals, we want to offer applications that meet consumer demands while pursuing payment methods which consumers find to be fair so that this can grow to be a pillar of our business.”

I think in the end it comes down to that- for Nintendo, these mobile games are not necessarily money makers (although, of course, they would like for them to generate revenue), but rather, they are meant to be synergistic with their core offerings on their own hardware. It is a strategy we have seen work for them in the past- remember the increase in 3DS sales, as well as of Pokemon games on it, following Pokemon GO‘s release?- so I can’t even say it is without merit.