Nintendo only takes a fraction of the revenue from Pokémon Go, the smash hit game of 2016, but its popularity has certainly boosted its own Pokémon games as evidenced by the company’s latest financial report. Nintendo reported a 64.7 billion JPY ($569 million) profit on revenue of 174.3 billion JPY ($1.5 billion).
That’s a return to the black following a $57.1 million loss in the previously quarter. Revenue was down 22 percent year-on-year, but Nintendo beat analysts expectations and it has raised expected profit for its annual financial report — due in May — to 90 billion JPY ($791 million) from 50 billion JPY ($440 million).
The firm spotlighted its Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon titles for the 3DS, which it said have clocked a combined 14.69 million in sales since launch in November. Super Mario Maker was top release, surpassing the one million mark during the recent quarter. That in turn drove hardware sales, Nintendo said, particularly overseas — Nintendo 3DS sales came in at 6.45 million, up 10 percent year-on-year, with the number of titles sold jumping 20 percent to hit 46.78 million.
Nintendo also released its much-anticipated first Mario game for mobile in December. Mario Run for iOS racked up a record 40 million downloads in its first four days, but Nintendo didn’t gave any further insight into how the game has done since then, or how much money it has grossed. The game will land on Android in March, so perhaps we’ll get more color in the next quarter. Another title, Fire Emblem Heroes, will be Android-first when it drops on February 2, but a third title — Animal Crossing — has been delayed.
Also coming soon is the Switch, Nintendo’s next flagship console, and that likely contributed to falling Wii U sales. Nintendo did say that the console’s performance “conformed to our expectations” with 0.76 million units sold in the last quarter. That’s down 75 percent year-on-year, with game sales also down 45 percent to reach 12.48 million. Nintendo also said revenue from amiibo character sales remained stable. Generally, revenue from digital was unchanged over the past tear due to the “relatively fewer offerings of downloadable content” on offer.