News

Animal Crossing Mobile Game Delayed

Nintendo announced the smartphone game's delay in their fiscal third quarter earnings release.

January 31, 2017 3:15 AM

Nintendo just reported their earnings results for their third quarter of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2017.

One sad little nugget of news is the delay of the anticipated Animal Crossing mobile game due out before April. The company claims to have diverted smartphone development resources to Super Mario Run for Android.

"We will also follow last December’s release of Super Mario Run for iOS with an Android version in March. To accommodate the releases and operation of these applications, we have revised the release schedule for Animal Crossing, which we had originally planned to release during this period. This title will be released during the next fiscal year." - Nintendo

"Next fiscal year" could mean any time between April 1, 2017 and March 31, 2018 so hopefully the company will provide a more concrete timetable in the near future. In the meantime, we will all have to keep playing Stardew Valley!

Asif Khan

CEO/EIC/EIEIO

Asif Khan is the CEO, EIC, and majority shareholder of Shacknews. He began his career in video game journalism as a freelancer in 2001 for Tendobox.com. Asif is a CPA and was formerly an investment adviser representative. After much success in his own personal investments, he retired from his day job in financial services and is currently focused on new private investments. His favorite PC game of all time is Duke Nukem 3D, and he is an unapologetic fan of most things Nintendo. Asif first frequented the Shack when it was sCary's Shugashack to find all things Quake. When he is not immersed in investments or gaming he is a purveyor of fine electronic music. Asif also has an irrational love of Cleveland sports.

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January 31, 2017 3:15 AM

Asif Khan posted a new article, Animal Crossing Mobile Game Delayed
- daggot
  
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  January 31, 2017 4:45 AM
  
  This suggests to me that the preregistration demand for the Android version of SMR is higher than they expected. If they moved resources that also suggests that March is earlier than they anticipated for the Android launch. Or the negative spin would be that the Android version is proving harder to develop than expected.
  
  Regardless, I'm not quite as excited about AC mobile as I was when it was originally announced. I'm okay with the one-time fee in SMR. But, seeing what they did for pokemon duel with the usual micro transactions, I fear AC will be yet another micro transactions fill mess that I won't care for. I hope I'm wrong, but that seems to be the trend.
  - Schnapple
    
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    January 31, 2017 5:27 AM
    
    I'm thinking it's probably more that they discovered Android development is a pain in the ass, even when you're using an engine like Unity.
    
    You have everything working perfect and then some obscure budget LG phone crashes when you run it. Compare to iOS where there's been like fifteen devices or something, ever.
    
    Obviously it's not impossible to overcome this (it's how Hearthstone is cross platform) but it could just have been harder than they anticipated.
    - daggot
      
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      January 31, 2017 6:33 AM
      
      Could have been some group of investors, or even executives I guess, have Android and are pushing for it. naw
    - derelict515
      
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      January 31, 2017 2:30 PM
      
      yeah, I take it more as a signal that they under resourced their mobile projects, especially now that they've realized/proven what kind of ROI it represents and how much easier it is to justify additional dev resources for it
  - one random winner
    
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    January 31, 2017 8:04 AM
    
    Nintendo had nothing to do with that, that's all the Pokemon company. I do wonder about it though given the monetization scheme for the mobile Fire Emblem.
- helvetica
  
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  January 31, 2017 6:36 AM
  
  Aw nuts. I'm looking forward to this one.
- Mmmmmoo
  
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  January 31, 2017 10:11 AM
  
  Need more Animal Crossing on Nintendo Switch.
  - one random winner
    
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    January 31, 2017 10:21 AM
    
    Yup, really want that one to show up sooner rather than later.
  - Galadriel07
    
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    January 31, 2017 2:28 PM
    
    Uh only if they give us a new fun game. Not the same game with like 2 new things added. :-|
    - Mmmmmoo
      
       reply
      January 31, 2017 3:43 PM
      
      I agree. I wonder where they go from New Leaf though. Being promoted to Mayor was a big deal. I also hope they don't nerf Isabelle's presence in the next game. I'm still disappointed Blathers is so lacking in NL compared to previous games.
    - daggot
      
       reply
      January 31, 2017 4:21 PM
      
      This is my concern too, especially since that's kinda what we're getting with Mario Kart, and the rumor keeps going around that they may just port the current Pokemon game. They need to push it a bit more than just a bump via bullet point.