Nintendo Co. Ltd., (NTDOY) Sets Release Date for ‘Fire Emblem: Heroes’

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Nintendo Co., Ltd (ADR) (OTCMKTS:NTDOY) has announced the next step in its plan to conquer the mobile gaming market — Fire Emblem: Heroes.

Nintendo Fire Emblem Heroes has a release date

Source: Nintendo

The latest Fire Emblem game will be released on Feb. 2, and this time Nintendo is making it available to both iOS and Android. The company also confirmed via a message on Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) that Super Mario Run will finally be available for Android in March.

Fire Emblem: Heroes is the second release in Nintendo’s ambitious plan to conquer the mobile gaming market. A tactical role-playing game, there have been over a dozen Fire Emblem titles released for Nintendo game systems, dating back to 1990. Fire Emblem: Heroes arrives for both iOS and Android on Feb. 2 as a free-to-play title.

Nintendo Is Now Committed to Mobile

Its own mobile gaming systems have taken a big hit since Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) launched the iPhone and App Store. The company has found that it’s an increasingly difficult proposition to sell dedicated game hardware — like the $199 3DS XL — and $30-plus games to consumers who already own an iPhone with a higher resolution display, more powerful CPU and a virtually unlimited library of free-to-play games.

The Nintendo DS handheld game system launched in 2004 and went on to sell nearly 155 million units. Apple released the iPhone in 2007, but the smartphone didn’t really begin to show its promise as a mobile gaming platform until the year after, when Apple launched its App Store. It was all downhill from there for Nintendo’s mobile gaming business. The number of games exploded on the App Store. Major game publishers like Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:EA) began releasing titles for the iPhone as well and even when they weren’t free, they were a fraction of the price of games for consoles.

As a result, the 3DS series has sold just 58 million units for Nintendo. Making things worse, the Wii U was a sales disaster … that puts pressure on Nintendo as mobile gaming is more critical to its bottom line than ever.

Recognizing the potential for complete disaster, Nintendo opted to finally throw in the towel and join the smartphone gaming world. Leveraging its popular games and characters offers the opportunity to cash in on the market, even if it means the potential for giving up some 3DS sales.

The Lessons of “Super Mario Run”

Fire Emblem: Heroes is the second game in Nintendo’s smartphone release schedule. The first was Super Mario Run, which launched on Dec. 15 for iOS. Everyone will be watching closely to see how this title performs after lessons Nintendo learned from Super Mario Run.

That first game was a massive hit, in that it saw record downloads of 40 million in just its first four days. In comparison, the top-selling 3DS title of all time is Pokemon X & Y with 15.64 million copies. However, that 3DS game retails for $40, while Super Mario Run was a free download. To play beyond the first few levels (for me, this was just 15 minutes of gameplay) costs $10. And according to the Wall Street Journal, as few as 3% of players actually forked over that cash. When you take Apple’s 30% App Store cut from that, the numbers aren’t quite so impressive.

Nintendo also took heat for delaying the Android release of the game. Considering that the vast majority of smartphones out there run Alphabet Inc’s (NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL) Android software, not iOS, that was likely a costly choice. The company finally confirmed a March release date in a tweet, but by now much of the excitement has died down.

With Fire Emblem: Heroes, Nintendo is going with a simultaneous release on iOS and Android. Like Super Mario Run, it’s a free download, but this time Nintendo appears to be going with a more traditional freemium pricing model, offering in-app purchases instead of requiring a lump sum payment to unlock the majority of the game.

Nintendo has a very busy two months ahead. Its new Switch console — and Wii U replacement — launches on March 3. Fire Emblem: Heroes will be released for iOS and Android on Feb. 2. And Super Mario Run finally hits Android in March. For Nintendo, February and March 2017 could well turn out to be the most important 60 days in its history.

As of this writing, Brad Moon did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.

Brad Moon has been writing for InvestorPlace.com since 2012. He also writes about stocks for Kiplinger and has been a senior contributor focusing on consumer technology for Forbes since 2015.


Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2017/01/nintendo-ntdoy-stock-fire-emblem-heroes-ios-android-switch/.

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