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[Draugoth]

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Very few people are downloading the big-name console games ported over to iPhone in the last year – and an even smaller number are paying $15-50 to unlock the full games.

Apple has showcased games including Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil 7, Death Stranding and Assassin’s Creed Mirage in its keynotes over the last 12 months, all running on high-end iPhones and iPads. But even using the most optimistic revenue estimates, they’re all commercial failures. (We’d bet that Apple is paying Ubisoft, Capcom and 505 Games to port the titles over so that the tech giant can use them to showcase its latest devices.)


Our calculations, based on Appfigures estimates, suggest that under 3,000 people have paid $49.99 to play Assassin’s Creed Mirage on iPhone since it launched on June 6. It has been downloaded approximately 123k times, with gross revenue of $138k to date, says Appfigures. The game is only playable on iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max and high-end iPads.

The graphs above and below show that Assassin’s Creed Mirage’s estimated daily downloads and revenue figures are tiny compared to an average mobile-native free-to-play game. Appfigures provided data for Ubisoft’s made-for-mobile title Assassin’s Creed Rebellion to demonstrate the point: at launch on 21 November 2018, Rebellion got 1.9m downloads in the same timespan Mirage reached just 123k installs.

 

[64bitmodels]

maybe i was wrong

who am i kidding i fucked up

 

[ssringo]

 

[TheInfamousKira]

People don't want to play an immersive first person survival horror game designed for controllers and keyboards on a phone?

What a bunch of entitled twits.

 

[Luipadre]

No shit, who tf wants to play games like those on a phone

 

[SJRB]

Why the fuck would anyone want to play Mirage or Resident Evil on a fucking phone?

 

[ResilientBanana]

I didn't even know that this was an option. But also, full price is NOT the move. If iOS had an advertised docking solution / controller. They would have sold more, but I doubt there are many kids, or gamers that can afford an iPhone 15.

 

[FoxMcChief]

J/k

 

[Punished Miku]

Why the fuck would anyone want to play Mirage or Resident Evil on a fucking phone?

It's really no different than playing something on a Steam Deck I'm sure. People have access to tons of controller options.

 

[FoxMcChief]

Why the fuck would anyone want to play Mirage or Resident Evil on a fucking phone?

I’m playing Elden Ring at work on my phone. That’s why.

 

[Spyxos]

 

[Spyxos]

People don't want to play an immersive first person survival horror game designed for controllers and keyboards on a phone?

What a bunch of entitled twits.

I think it is more, that those people are not paying full price on a phone or tablet. Why pay so much when there are tons of f2p games or games for like a 5 dollars.

 

[Gojiira]

Yeah and people push that narrative that streaming and smartphones are the future with consoles falling to extinction lol…Wait let me laugh louder LOOOOOOOOOOL.

 

[Gp1]

Death Stranding almost demands a big screen.

Of course is playable on Deck or something for heavy users, but i don't see casual playing the game on the go on a small screen.

 

[Arachnid]

Yeah no shit lmao. Mobile gamers aren't trying to play Death Standing dude.

 

[FoxMcChief]

Death Stranding almost demands a big screen.

Of course is playable on Deck or something for heavy users, but i don't see casual playing the game on the go on a small screen.

Casuals aren’t playing Death Stranding anywhere.

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

 

[tommib]

Let’s not forget these are only available for the latest version of Pro iPhones. Anyway, Capcom keeps releasing them. Apple has its wallet open. For how long, time will tell.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

platform idiosyncrasies

 

[TheInfamousKira]

I think it is more, that those people are not paying full price on a phone or tablet. Why pay so much when there are tons of f2p games or games for like a 5 dollars.

That kind of ties into my point, too. These are hard hitter AAA titles. The demographic just isn't there. Anyone who wanted to play RE8 did it years ago when it dropped on console. You'll have your confused old people buys and your quirky niche buys, but it's not something that's going to drop big numbers. Hopefully they didn't do the classic "Our projections were 44 million downloads, we failed and will never fuck with this again!"

 

[RoboFu]

I guess re 4 and 8 sold so badly that they are releasing 7 out of spite?

 

[joeygreco1985]

I just dont know who these ports are aimed at. Anyone remotely interested in these games played them elsewhere on a big screen TV.

 

[Sushi_Combo]

I don't understand who they thought were going to buy these old ass games to begin with.

 

[OmegaSupreme]

 

[Mobilemofo]

I'm not entirely sure there's a big enough market for folk who want console ports on their phones, especially at those prices.

 

[Hollowpoint5557]

If they brought them to Android I would have tried atleast one of them. I have tons of free time at work and would give it a go. I downloaded Winlator and run a shell to play Fallout New Vegas on my S23 Ultra as is.
For the people saying "who wants to play console games on their phone?", you do know Gamepass streams full console games to phones for years now right? I used to stream Gamepass cloud games to my phone often.

 

[GHG]

Who the fuck wants to play these kinds of games on a mobile phone?

 

[TransTrender]

"This isn't TikTok"

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

It is unpleasant to play on the Mobile with only touch.

That's for commoners.

 

[tkscz]

I said it when they announced it and I'll continue to say it, Apple created a shopping ecosystems where games are free to play or free to pay. People don't want to pay more than $5 on the game initially and will foolishly pay more than the asking price on free games over time, but that initial free download hooks them. The average iPhone user would never pay full asking price for these games, even if you gave them the means to control it. Looks at Fortnite and CoD mobile for example. Tons of people play those without controllers because the games are free.

 

[MacReady13]

Yeah but Microsoft says there are literally hundreds of millions of "gamers" playing games on mobile phones and it is a market they are missing out on!!!

I mean honestly, who could NOT have seen this coming? Mobile phone "gamers" play certain types of "games" and these are most certainly not the games they want to play, so please, stop trying to force them onto mobile idiots and stop trying to tell us that mobile is the next big gaming movement.

 

[MacReady13]

Who the fuck wants to play these kinds of games on a mobile phone?

Yeah but Microsoft thinks that us gamers want to play these games on that small screen instead of on our big TV's. The future is cloud on mobile and mobile gaming, apparently...

 

[MujkicHaris]

Who the fuck wants to play these kinds of games on a mobile phone?

It's the same type of people who watch The Hateful Eight on a mobile phone. Those kinds.

 

[Iced Arcade]

Exclusive to the Kardashians crowd of mobility lol

 

[Connxtion]

The issue is you need an iPhone 15+ device or one of the newer iPads. Most folk are still on 13s/14s and older devices.

Also £45 for what folk will see as a mobile game (even though it’s not) are not going to fork over that money. (Some will)

I personally have a 15 pro max and if Death Stranding was cheaper I may have double dipped, but not paying full price again for it when I can just take my steam deck with me & get better performance and visuals. (it’s 30FPS on IOS)

 

[thekillergreece]

I don't think CAPCOM or any other companies ported those games to mobile phones / tablets.
I think it's more so to allow a better access to those games. As in, players who do not possess good PC or console but have phone can buy the game on their phone and play it there.
Nice idea but I doubt it'll ever sell good.

 

[rodrigolfp]

People don't want to play an immersive first person survival horror game designed for controllers and keyboards on a phone?

3000 did want. And controllers work on those phones.

 

[RoboFu]

Who the fuck wants to play these kinds of games on a mobile phone?

The people who hooked their phones up to a tv with a Bluetooth controller like a console?

The people who use a controller with an iPad ?

I don't really understand why your question keeps coming up. Mobile does not have to be small touch screen only.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Big surprise.

Who could’ve predicted an audience that plays ftp games wouldn’t buy full priced games?

 

[Pimpollo818]

obligatory:

 

[GHG]

The people who hooked their phones up to a tv with a Bluetooth controller like a console?

The people who use a controller with an iPad ?

I don't really understand why your question keeps coming up. Mobile does not have to be small touch screen only.

Good for those 10 people then I guess?

 

[TheInfamousKira]

3000 did want. And controllers work on those phones.

Is 3000 the sequel to that movie where Gerard Butler gets cucked while fighting a war against the X-Men version of brown people? Does this one have laser cannons and energy Shields?

Now for the serious response: If 3000 is the number of sales (I didn't look because I was just shitposting) then that totally ties (haha alliteration) into my earlier observation that most of the sales came from people who are mobile whales and buy everything, grandparents who were trying to download Ruzzle but didn't have their reading glasses on, and nerdy forum guys who think the concept is neat and purchase it almost as an objet d'art of sorts, a kind of dogwhistle to other eccentric, cutting edge people to be like "Awww shit, I got that, too, dude, let's talk about it!"

I mean, no shame.

 

[March Climber]

I think it is more, that those people are not paying full price on a phone or tablet.

This is why better cross-purchasing options need to exist. You’re right, no one wants to buy a full priced copy of a game only on apple’s store or google play store.

However, if they could purchase the game on steam or playstation or something and then natively download and play it through their app on the phone, this would be a much better incentive for playing AAA on mobile.

 

[Zimmy68]

Charging me full price for a game I already paid for on PC, to play on my phone, well, good luck.

 

[Ozzie666]

Mobile users rather spend thousands on small amounts on angry birds, candy crush, pokemon go or genshin impact. Or whatever gotcha game.

 

[tkscz]

Mobile users rather spend thousands on small amounts on angry birds, candy crush, pokemon go or genshin impact. Or whatever gotcha game.

It's the casino complex. Many studies show that people go to casinos and spend more money when they get in for free and/or get a free trial at a game then if they had to pay to get in. Something about the average person sees free to start as better than a lump sum that wouldn't cost as much in the long run. Short term gain is just better in their minds.

As I said before, this is the ecosystem that Apple started and Google helped push. People won't buy these games if they cost more than $5. But if they were free to download and you bought chapters for $4.99 and split the game up into 10 chapters, they'd more likely get it

 

[fart town usa]

Why the fuck would anyone want to play Mirage or Resident Evil on a fucking phone?

Makes me think of people saying the Portal is useless cause you can just get the backbone.

I completely agree though, I wouldn't want to play console games on my phone either.

 

[adamsapple]

The RE ports just came out like 2 weeks ago...

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

As I said before, this is the ecosystem that Apple started and Google helped push. People won't buy these games if they cost more than $5. But if they were free to download and you bought chapters for $4.99 and split the game up into 10 chapters, they'd more likely get it

They wouldn't. On mobile people don't pay for a story chopped up in pieces. If those games don't have a way to implement MTXs alongside a F2P model, they'd better not enter the mobile market.

 

[Sleepwalker]

I remember someone in here saying these games would perform better on iphone than ps5/xsx lol good times.