Start your week right with our quick take on the stories that are impacting the mobile industry right now.
To help get you primed and ready for another week in mobile gaming, we’ve curated the biggest stories you need to know from the last seven days.
1) Supercell’s Squad Busters soft launches today with over 100,000 Google Play downloads
Squad Busters finally entered soft launch last week and surpassed 100,000 downloads in its first day on Google Play. Leveraging characters from Supercell IPs like Clash of Clans and Brawl Stars clearly had many fans excited to try this title out.
The soft launch rolled out in Canada, Denmark, Spain, Mexico, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Singapore on iOS and Android. Though the soft launch won’t last long…
2) Everyone loves Nintendo… Delta emulator hits 4.4 million downloads in its first week
The new retro games emulator Delta has been taking the Apple App Store by storm, reaching a huge 4.4 million downloads on the store in its first week. The number of Apple users playing the game must be higher still when accounting for downloads from the AltStore in the EU, meaning a great number of people are now playing Nintendo games on iOS.
It’s important to note, however, that Delta is not an official Nintendo emulator and is in no way affiliated with the Japanese game maker; it also doesn’t come with Nintendo games included in the download, but rather facilitates playing them if Apple users acquire the ROMs elsewhere.
3) Supercell's Squad Busters launches globally on May 29th
Following the immediate success of Squad Busters’ soft launch, Supercell has already revealed plans for a full release next month. It will mark Supercell’s first fully launched game since 2018’s Brawl Stars - over half a decade ago - and bring squad-building mobile action to fans everywhere.
The full launch was announced within two days of soft launch, suggesting key metrics indicative of its potential success have been met. After all, Supercell is no stranger to shuttering games even at the soft launch stage, hence the five-year hiatus. But, clearly, Squad Busters has made it through, with a launch date confirmed for May 29th.
4) Honkai: Star Rail earned more than double Genshin Impact’s revenue in March
March 2024 marked Genshin Impact’s worst full month since launch, according to App Magic data. Despite being miHoYo’s flagship, it generated only $58.5 million last month in a continued decline through 2024 thus far.
Meanwhile, the rising star of 2023 Honkai: Star Rail managed to rake in more than double its predecessor’s earnings, finding itself on a continued rise as it generated $118.3 million within the same period. Its biggest boost came from the release of Version 2.1.
5) Call of Duty Warzone: Mobile generated 'just' $6.92 million in its first month
One month on from worldwide launch, Activision’s Call of Duty Warzone: Mobile has generated $6.92 million in consumer spending. The US is the biggest spender so far, contributing 50% of revenue over the past 30 days, but even 100% of its earnings are but a fraction of its predecessor’s.
After all, when the original Call of Duty: Mobile launched in 2019 it brought in over six times as much in its debut month - generating $44 million. With Warzone: Mobile’s bot problem, overheating devices and more in need of addressing, this goes to show the difference launching an optimised game can make.
