Nintendo has confirmed plans to shutdown its first mobile game less than two years after its launch.
Miitomo wasn’t exactly the Nintendo name fans were hoping to see when the Japanese company finally embraced Android and iOS. Unsurprisingly, the game couldn’t sustain our interest for long and now it’s no longer worth Nintendo’s time.
Nintendo is responsible for some of the finest, most beloved franchises in gaming. For years, fans were calling for it to bring the likes of Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Pokémon to smartphones and tablets.
So when Nintendo announced in March 2015 that it would finally be bringing its games to mobile, we couldn’t have been happier. We waited a year for the first one to arrive, and what did we get? Mario? Donkey Kong? Smash Bros.? No… we got Miitomo.
Miitomo was destined to fail
Miitomo quickly took off, with more than 4 million downloads in under a month. It didn’t take long for the game to reach 10 million downloads, and at its peak, it was said to be raking in $280,000 a week for Nintendo.
But the curiosity didn’t last long. Within two months, the number of active Miitomo players had fallen to 2.5 million. It’s unclear how many people still play the game, but it’s clearly not enough for Nintendo to justify keeping it alive.
The company today confirmed that Miitomo will shutdown on May 9, 2018 — just two years after making its debut. “We are sorry for the customers who enjoyed it,” reads the statement, translated from Japanese, “but we appreciate your kind understanding.”
Players will be refunded
The Miitomo app obviously won’t disappear from your iOS devices automatically, but after May 9, you’ll no longer be able to login and use the service.
If you have purchased Miitomo coins, you’ll receive a refund for any you don’t use before the service shuts down. Nintendo says it will provide details for the refund procedure on the Miitomo website after May 9.
