From $1,000 Xbox handhelds and $30 Game Pass hikes to Fire Emblem Shadows’ $90,000 debut | Week in Views
The games industry moves quickly and while stories may come and go there are some that we just can't let go of…
So, to give those particularly thorny topics a further going over we've created a weekly digest where the members of the PocketGamer.biz team share their thoughts and go that little bit deeper on some of the more interesting things that have happened in mobile gaming in the past week.
Paige Cook
Microsoft prices ROG Xbox Ally X handheld at $1,000
This was a story from last week that I wanted to circle back around to. I can’t say I was surprised that the Xbox Ally is expensive, but wow, it’s really expensive. $599 for the base model and $999 for the Ally X is a steep price to pay.
Sure, the hardware looks impressive on paper but is handheld gaming really just about that? Because in my mind if you are someone mostly interested in specs, you probably wouldn’t be looking at handhelds as your go to.
For these prices, you could buy an actual Xbox Series X for less than the Ally X. You could grab a Steam Deck at a lower cost, which, by the way, can run Game Pass and your native Xbox games albeit with some setup.
This feels more like being able to say 'we have the best specs' than it does about really moving handheld gaming forward, which, for me comes with a blend of performance and value. While I'm sure there will be some enthusiasts out there who want to pick one of these up, I don't see much of an appeal to the broader audience.
And as if the pricing on the ROG Xbox Ally wasn't enough, Xbox also announced this week the rollout of changes to its Game Pass subscription.. The tiers have been rebranded from Core, Standard, and Ultimate to Essential, Premium, and Ultimate, and come with a new pricing structure. The standout is $30 for Game Pass Ultimate, a massive 50% increase.
I couldn't help but think of the Black Mirror episode Common People where a woman has to keep paying a ridiculous amount of money for subscriptions for a brain implant that keeps her alive, but the episode pokes fun at subscriptions models that are forever changing prices and making its once great tier now sound like the basic package. The irony of this Black Mirror episode being on Netflix, which also has had questionable subscription tactics at times was not lost on me.
But back to Xbox, all in all, from $999 handheld consoles and $30 Game Pass fees, the motto of "gaming is for everyone" only feels true if you're willing to keep up with the bigger price tags.
Aaron Astle
Nintendo’s Fire Emblem Shadows makes just $90,000 in first week on iOS
Yes, the resident Fire Emblem fan is talking about Fire Emblem again…
But it’s been a noteworthy first week for Fire Emblem Shadows - Nintendo’s first new mobile game in six years - and not because of any major success. Quite the opposite, actually. According to AppMagic estimates, the Among Us-like social deduction game has made just $90,000 in its first week on iOS, just over 1% of what Fire Emblem Heroes achieved back in 2017.
So, what went wrong? While I’ll save my full thoughts for our Week in Mobile Games podcast (check it out, by the way), in essence, Shadows’ monetisation currently relies largely around whether you’re interested in the season pass. If you are, you buy it; if you’re not, you don’t.
The game hasn’t launched with a bunch of tempting purchases, and it doesn’t have a gacha for a chance at that rare, powerful character. So, unlike Heroes, there isn’t much to spend for. And there certainly isn’t much to make a repeat purchase for - at least right now.
In fact, I suspect Fire Emblem Shadows has made Heroes more money than it’s made for itself, as the season pass features a new beast form of popular character Lyn - and that form has already crossed over into Heroes’ gacha.
The day this new Lyn released in Heroes, the game made $112,000 on iOS alone, beating the $90,000 Shadows has made over a week. Was all that spending for Lyn? Probably not. But spending was up 217% compared to the day before her arrival.
And, by the nature of the gacha, in Heroes you’re paying for the chance of getting Lyn, where in Shadows you can unlock her through just one payment.
So, is Shadows going to become the next big thing for Nintendo? Right now it doesn’t look like it, but perhaps with a monetisation overhaul I’ll be singing a different tune in the months to come.
Companies
