The Animal Crossing Mobile Direct will show off the brand new Animal Crossing game for mobile devices.
The presentation begins worldwide on October 24 at 8:00 p.m. PT / 11:00 p.m. ET. It will be roughly 15 minutes long and there will be no updates on any other topics including Nintendo Switch, Nintendo 3DS, or other mobile games. So don’t expect Animal Crossing for Nintendo Switch.
Animal Crossing mobile was first announced in April 2016 along with a Fire Emblem game that would become Fire Emblem Heroes released in February 2017. As Polygon reports, the mobile version will connect in some way with one of the Animal Crossing games for Nintendo’s dedicated gaming systems. This will not be a companion app, however, as Nintendo promised at the time that both Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem mobile will be “pure game applications” according to Polygon. Since Fire Emblem Heroes turned out to be a mobile version of both modern and classic Fire Emblem games, we can expect them to complete their promise with Animal Crossing mobile.
Nintendo’s very first mobile game was Miitomo in March 2016, a social app that had you answering questions between you and your friends’ customizable Mii characters. Next up was Pokemon Go developed by Niantic and released in July 2016 where it quickly set the world ablaze as millions of players tried to catch them all. Then Nintendo released Super Mario Run in December 2016, a runner game with Mario in familiar platforming challenges as well as a light kingdom building simulator and other modes.
According to Engadget, Nintendo wants to release two to three mobile titles every year. So far they managed that in 2016 and it looks like they’ll manage that for 2017 if Animal Crossing mobile releases this year.
Mobile games have proven to be very lucrative to Nintendo. Forbes reports that as of April 2017, Pokemon Go brought in $180 million in profit to Nintendo despite them sharing the game with The Pokemon Company and Niantic and Super Mario Run has almost 150 million downloads across Android and iOS devices (however Super Mario Run didn’t cross the desired 10 percent threshold of players who buy the full game after the trial). Forbes reports that Nintendo has earned a total of 11.8 billion yen ($104 million) in Japan and 9.3 billion yen ($82 million) in the U.S. from its mobile games. Fire Emblem Heroes was downloaded 11.7 million times and earned $114.9 million dollars across both Apple and Android products as of July 2017 according to research by SensorTower.
What would you like to see in Animal Crossing mobile? Let us know in the comment section below.
