An Animal Crossing game for mobile devices has been in the works for some time now. Originally, Nintendo planned to release the game in 2016, but it was then pushed back to early 2017. Now, the game’s release has been delayed even further, with Nintendo mentioning in their third-quarter earnings report that the mobile Animal Crossing will likely be released sometime in the next fiscal year.
The reason given for the delay is so that Nintendo can focus on other mobile games. In particular, the recently announced Fire Emblem Heroes will be available this Thursday, February 2. Also, Super Mario Run is going to be coming to Android devices sometime in March. According to the financial report, Super Mario Run was one of Nintendo’s most successful products of this fiscal year, having been downloaded to over 40 million smart devices in just its first four days. According to GameSpot article, the game has been downloaded a total of 78 million times since release, with about five percent of players paying the ten dollars to unlock the full game. That means that the game brought in about 39 million dollars in revenue, so it’s no wonder that porting the game to Android takes precedence over the release of the mobile Animal Crossing.
Fans of Animal Crossing hopefully won’t have to wait too long, however. Nintendo’s fiscal year ends on March 31, 2017, so the mobile Animal Crossing game could see a release as early as April of this year. The game will reportedly be free-to-play upon release, as will Fire Emblem Heroes.