I would like to make a comparisson between two games that have game mechanics that are quite similar: Monument Valley (iOS, Android, Amazon) and Captain Toad (Wii U).

I want to do this comparisson to see if there is a good idea for Nintendo to make their franchises for mobile platforms, and also how much of an iOS game could possible gain from porting to Wii U.

Monument Valleys gameplay: You guide a figure that cannot jump but climb ladders around a maze. The game is played in an isometric view. The maze is interactive, making it possible to change the architecture, to help the figure reach the goal.

Captain Toads gameplay: You guide a figure that cannot jump but climb ladders around a maze. The game is played in a rotatable "isometric" view. The maze is interactive, making it possible to change the architecture, to help the figure reach the goal.

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Monument Valleys Development: It took 55 weeks and $852,000 for the 8 person team (part of the187 person Ustwogames company) to make the game. It was released in April 2014.

Captain Toads Development: It took less than a year to develop (announced June 2014, probably started late 2013). ***Here I need help establishing how many that worked on this project from  Nintendo EAD Tokyo Software Development Group No. 2 (The Game End Credits contain about 80 names)***. It was released in December 2014.

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Monument Valleys sales: 2,440,076 units on three platforms (iOS, Android, Amazon) [DLC sold 575,608 units]. Revenue:  5,858,625.   Sales share: 82% iOS and only 14% Google Play.   http://www.macrumors.com/2015/01/15/monument-valley-ios-sales/

Captain Toads sales: 500,000 units (according to VGChartz http://www.vgchartz.com/game/82962/captain-toad-treasure-tracker/) for a retail price of $39.99. Making a revenue before VAT and retailer margins etc. to almost $20,000,000. Let's say Nintendo get to keep half of that making their revenue $10,000,000. 

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So these two games were almost equally financial successful in their respective platforms. Monument Valley due to its platform of choice has to sell 5 times more units to make a little more than half of the revenue of Captain Toad. The majority of both games sales came from the United States at 38 percent (MV) and 48 (CT). 

Conclusion (I got tired, having the flu):

On a much smaller installed base Nintendo can make as much money on their own hardware as on the infinitely bigger audience for mobile games. 

Interesting quote: "Monument Valley received some negative attention after the expansion was priced at $1.99 in-app by users who believed that the update should be free, but the half a million in development costs for the Android and iOS apps explain why it would have been largely unreasonable for the team to release an expansion at no cost. "

Are the 5 million revenue for Monument valley before or after AppleStore/Play Store took their shares?

Good comparison by the way, thanks. It shows something. Captain Toad is a small scale production at lower price and not a megaseller. Still it can secure a bigger revenue than the similar mobile game. It shows the risks on console are lower for devs and they can therefore invest more into games, especially at full price. The games tend to get more quality in the result, as the budget can be more generous.

I feel like this thread should be tagged for the many arguments that will arise over the next few years. It's a very good point.

The counter argument would be that Nintendo games on mobile would sell in greater numbers than monument valley. Still If Nintendo can rectify some of their consoles wrongs next gen they can start making more money of others peoples works.

Well, Nintendo could take much higher prices on mobile platforms (even for short games) than an unknown developer like "ustwo" and many gamers would pay the premium price.

Telltale Games does it (the episodes and season passes on iOS and Android aren't cheaper than the same episodes and season passes on all the other platforms), SquareEnix does it (Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest,Hitman, Deus Ex, ...), 2K does it (Civilization, Xcom, BioShock...), CAPCOM does it (Ace Attorney, Ghost Trick, Tekken...), EA does it ... and Nintendo definitely could do it too without many complaints about the premium prices.

Yeah, it is a bit more difficult than lower prices = better sales. To make up for halving the price, you need to double the sales. As mobile games often are less then a tenth of the price of console games, you need 10 times the sales. Also some cost stay constant, despite the price. For retail games they are packaging, storage, delivery. So you probably need more than double the sales on halved prices to get to the same revenue. For this reason mobile games are exclusively digital, as the costs for the single copy are very low.

Also, will lower prices get to more sales in the same degree? Depends probably on the game. If gamers of genre X have a pickup mentality - oh look it's cheap and loks fun - this may work. Classical console gamers tend to be strong fans of special series, so they might not pick up casually a competing game instead, only because it is cheaper. They may buy the competing game additionally. That means the sales for these types of games are probably pretty much fixed to the size of the fanbase, despite the circumstances. Look at the sales of Monster Hunter. Despite being on a different platform japanese sales of Monster Hunter 4 are comparable to the PSP-entries.

Which type are typical games? Well, Mario Kart for instance seems in part play into these pickup-mentality. It's sales are correlating somewhat to the popularity of the platform. Still, Mario Kart Wii is more popular than Mario Kart DS, although DS was bigger. In general the size of the platform is important, Mario Kart GC and WiiU have low sales. Zelda on the other hand - the sales of main Zelda-entries aren't very dependant on sales. While the GC-entry Wind Waker is among the ones with the lowest sales, it's also true for the SNES-entry A Link to the Past, although the SNES had three times the userbase as the GC. So we could assume something like Mario Kart might sell better on mobiles with a low price (although it's difficult to guess if enough to make up for the lower price), while something like Zelda will sell almost the same, despite price and platform.

So basically all people who want Nintendo to go mobile want the death of Zelda.

Good original post.

Over time, I think mobile gaming will get even more hot, flat, and crowded with F2P and pay to win games. As the competition gets more fierce, the prices will continue to fall for mobile games. More than one publisher will get burned for putting out a nearly complete experience for next to nothing in order to compete in mobile.

I find it sad that people either a) don't value gaming experiences to invest in good games or b) willingly dole out hundreds of dollars for something inferior to a game you could buy for $20-$60.

Very interesting thread and a very good point!

It can be argued that Nintendo would sell a shit ton on mobile, and while that's true for a few select franchises, the majority of their games would hardly sell anything at all. Only a few games become huge titles, and most of them are free. Angrybirds developer Rovio mostly makes their money on merchandise. They even had to lay off people quite recently. Only goes to show how hard it is to make a profit and why Nintendo just shouldn't go all out on mobile.

11% voted that Nintendo should go mobile; they're either trolls or dumb.

Most people who want Nintendo to go mobile totally understand that they wouldn't get ALL Nintendo games. Many games would stay exclusive to Nintendo's own platforms and all of them would stay at least timed exclusives... and most mobile gamers would be fine with that.

"Going full in" would hurt their own platforms. And they shouldn't test the mobile waters with their crown jewels (Mario, Zelda, Pokemon...) but with other fun games which would work well on a touchscreen.

A Captain Toad or Advance Wars or Pikmin game should work fine... not the identical game, only some super fun levels. And if the mobile gamers are fixed, they can get the whole experience on 3DS or WiiU. IF these sell well and have an additional advertisement effect, they could offer some classics on mobile platforms... not all of them, only some selected titles... perhaps an older Pokemon game.