Possibly fewer than 2,000 iOS users have chosen to purchase the latest port thus continuing a sluggish trend for console gaming on Apple mobile devices. Resident Evil 7 biohazard recently launched for iOS on July 1 and according to estimates from Appmagic, the sales numbers are not looking good. Capcom reports that it has shipped over 10.6 million copies of the game worldwide since its 2017 release so an estimate that fewer than 2,000 have been sold on iOS seems dismal by comparison. However, as reported in June by Mobilegamer.biz, this is far from the first DOA console game to be seen on iOS.
According to the June report Assassin’s Creed Mirage, at $49.99, reportedly only sold 3,000 units showing that mobile users are unlikely to purchase a game at full price. Death Stranding took the top spot and for $20 it sold over 10,000 units. Resident Evil 4 managed around 7,000 units sold with a more manageable price of $29.99 but a low price of $15.99 for Resident Evil Village wasn’t enough to top the chart, but it at least managed around 5,700 units sold. Unfortunately, though, all of these show less than stellar interest from iOS users to buy games for their mobile devices.
“Selling the average iPhone 15 owner on the value of buying the game again at full price, even if it runs across iPad and Mac as well, is clearly an issue, as the data bears out.”
Randy Nelson – Appfigures head of insights
User’s budgets and large install sizes to blame?
Multiple factors could be at play causing the slow start to gaming on Apple iOS devices. For starters, only the more recent iPhones, Macbooks, and iPads with the M1 processor or newer technology can be used to play the newly ported games. Additionally, the install sizes can be problematic because they can be over 25GB and require twice that to install. Mobilegamer reports that download times at 10 Mbps would need 6 hours to complete but if the user is lucky enough to have a faster connection, of say 300 Mbps, it zips in at around 10 minutes. One other dynamic that could be playing a factor in all this is that if one could afford a high-end phone or Macbook they might already have a console or PC on which they already own the game, and according to Appmagic head of content Andrei Zubov, this could indeed be the case.
Per Andrei Zubov (via Mobilegamer):
“Players who can afford flagship mobile devices and $50 for games are likely to have the resources to enjoy games on PC and console as well. On the other hand, players who can’t afford gaming devices or high-performance mobile phones are less likely to make a one-time $50 purchase.”