Spotify’s ‘Add to Queue’ is a lie

When you see Add to Queue in Spotify, think Play Next instead.

Sometimes you don’t want to hassle with playlists or radio stations; you just want to throw a few songs together in the queue and get the tunes flowing. Unfortunately for Spotify users, the queue behaves differently — and awkwardly — in ways that can make simple tasks difficult, if not impossible. Chief among the awkward and different ways Spotify’s queue works is “Add to Queue,” which should really be called something else.

When you add a song to your queue using Add to Queue, rather than adding it to the main queue, it’s added to a special sub-queue called “Next in Queue.” Next in Queue behaves drastically different than the regular queue:

• Next in Queue remains next in queue, even if you move to another location in the queue. So if you skip to the end of an album, use Add to Queue on an album, and then skip back to the beginning of the album you were listening to, it won’t play the album in the queue and then the second album. It will play the first track of the first album, then the entirety of the second album, then the rest of the first album.
• Once a track in Next in Queue is played, it vanishes from the playback order. If a song in Next in Queue ends and you hit previous track, it won’t be the song that just played, but the last song from the regular queue that played. Tracks can’t be replayed unless you restart them before the end of the song.
• Tracks in Next in Queue do not shuffle when a queue is on Shuffle play. Tracks are played in the order they were added to Next in Queue, and then shuffle will resume in the regular queue.

These deviations may seem minor, but they can add up to a major impact when attempting basic tasks. Want to listen to three albums in a row on Spotify? Well, you need to start with a pre-existing queue, use Add to Queue to put all three albums in Next in Queue in order, then skip the current track in the pre-existing queue to start the three-album mini-queue. Want to shuffle three albums while you listen to them? Well, you’ll have to add the albums to a playlist and shuffle them there.

Trying to build a playlist by adding songs to the queue and seeing how they sound in the mix? You’ll have to evaluate them before the song ends or drag each one from Play in Next to the regular queue in order to have them not vanish the second the song’s over.

Queue management in Spotify is a little bit like playlist management for Spotify: confusingly limited for what seem like simple operations. You can’t save a currently playing queue as a playlist either the way many music players do, but given that building a playlist in the queue is next to impossible anyway with Play in Next’s behavior, it’s a small loss.

Have you experienced an of these frustrations in Spotify while trying to play a particular mix of albums or songs? Do you just start a new queue or playlist every time you want to heard something? Tell us how you manage it in the comments below, and tell us: should Add to Queue get a different name?

Arizona Sunshine tips and tricks for PlayStation VR

We can help you git gud at one of the best zombie shooters on PSVR.

Arizona Sunshine, available for PlayStation VR (PSVR) as well as HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and Windows Mixed Reality, sends you out into the bleak, dry desert to complete a campaign mode before enjoying it all over again online with a friend or up against hordes of enemies that don’t stop coming until you run out of ammo. To help you get the most out of this zombie shooter, I’ve put together a list of tips and tricks.

See at PlayStation Store

Sort out your controllers

The aged PS Move controllers that go along with the PSVR are undoubtedly its weakest point, and the poor tracking and controls are only magnified once you’re forced into a tense situation where precise movement is required to survive.

You get the highest level of immersion when using the two Move controllers — you feel like you’re actually using the virtual hands — but unfortunately, you also get the clunkiest control scheme and poorest aim.

Coupled with a big update that brought a bunch of two-handed weapons to Arizona Sunshine, the PSVR Aim controller (about $60) will likely be your best bet when it comes to shooting and combat movement. It simulates an actual two-handed gun stock, and it has a couple of joysticks that let you move around freely and without hassle. The biggest issue is that opening doors and interacting with some other objects feels weird.

See at Amazon

If dropping that extra cash on the Aim controller isn’t an option right now, you can always try out the regular DualShock 4 controller that came with your PlayStation 4 (PS4). It might take a little bit of getting used to, but the general consensus seems to be that it’s still better than using the Move controllers.

Improve PSVR tracking

PSVR relies on bright lights mounted on the headset and controllers to track movement, and you might be having some issues with unstable wobbling or tearing if you’re playing in a room bathed in sunlight. I’ve had best tracking with the blinds closed and lights out, but at least removing any direct glare should help a lot.

When aiming down the sight with Move or Aim controller, try holding it further away from your face. This way, the camera has a better chance of distinguishing headset and controller lights, resulting in better tracking.

You can also get creative with your camera’s physical placement in the room. Some claim that setting it at a 45-degree angle across the room helps since the camera again has an easier time telling the difference between controller and headset lights when you have a weapon raised.

Others still have tried mounting the camera straight down on the ceiling. This keeps the controller and headset lights apart, even with a gun held out straight in front of your face. It won’t hurt to try different orientations, and when you find one you like, stick with it.

Arizona Sunshine PSVR gameplay tips and tricks

Once you’ve chosen a controller and have tracking nailed down, it’s time to get into the meat of Arizona Sunshine.

Choose locomotion you’re comfortable with

While smooth movement — the kind that simulates natural walking and turning — is more immersive, you might find that it makes your legs shake and head spin. Though teleporting and snap turning might make you feel more like a superhero than a ragged survivor, you’ll be able to enjoy the game without worrying about falling flat on your face.

Treat gunplay as realistic

Some great PSVR games are more on the arcade-y side of things, letting you run and gun with a souped-up shotgun while demons erupt in blood (looking at you, DOOM VFR). However, Arizona Sunshine is more realistic and should be treated so. It might seem natural to stay far away from zombies, but if you want to pull off headshots with amazing accuracy, chances are you’ll have to get close.

On a related note, it’s not a bad idea to take that extra second to line up a shot properly (if you aren’t using a shotgun and aren’t surrounding in walkers). Ammo gets real scarce in the later levels, so every shot really does count.

Collect ammo faster

See a box of ammo sitting on the seat of a car? Unless you’re working on a stealthy run, just shoot out the window and reach into the car instead of opening the door. This is much faster and you’ll be reloading at the same time you’d otherwise still be fiddling the with handle.

Conserve ammo

When you reload a gun that has an unfinished magazine, those extra bullets fall to the ground with the expended clip. To save wasting those precious bullets, grab the ejected magazine from off of the ground and replace it in your belt. The ammo will be re-added to your total.

Reload comfortably

VR games often make reloading a gun a challenge, and while Arizona Sunshine definitely isn’t the worst offender, you’ll want to get used to the mechanic before getting into any tense situation. Since you can pick up your magazines and not lose bullets, go through the motions a bunch of times when you aren’t already under attack.

Plan your defense

One of the scariest parts of Arizona Sunshine is when you’ve attracted a horde of shambling, rotting corpses. Once you know you’re about to be sieged, find a good place from which you can defend. Don’t get caught out in the open, and don’t leave your back unprotected!

Don’t be afraid to retreat

Once you’ve put in some time, you should be able to get a sense for when the zombies are about to overwhelm you. Sure, your skills will keep improving and you’ll be able to dispatch them easier, but there will still be times when high-tailing it out of a situation is a better strategy than sticking around to become dinner.

See at PlayStation Store

More resources

• How to locate and fix tracking issues for your PlayStation VR
• Best place to buy your PlayStation Aim controller
• How high should your PS camera be for VR?

Best External Monitors for your Chromebook

Because sometimes you just want to go big; plug into one of these monitors for that desktop feeling.

Chromebooks are perfect on-the-go computers for a lot of people, but sometimes you just want to sit down, relax, and do your thing with a big display. That’s why almost every laptop, regardless of what software is running on it, has some sort of port to send video out to an external display.

And connecting it all together really couldn’t be easier. You really only need three things: your Chromebook, your monitor, and a cable that can plug into each. Chrome makes using desktop peripherals dead simple, and we’ve had a close look at exactly what you need to do and how you can get started.

Using your Chromebook with an external monitor, mouse and keyboard

That’s the easy part. Sometimes making sure you buy the right thing is the hard part. Nobody wants to spend money they didn’t need to spend or find out there was a better option or even the “perfect” option out there and they didn’t see it. We can help! Here’s a rundown of the best monitors for your Chromebook no matter what or how you need it.

• Best 4K monitor: BenQ PD3200U
• Best 1080p monitor: ASUS VE278H
• Best smaller monitor: Acer G226HQL
• Best budget monitor: ASUS VS247H-P

Best 4K monitor: BenQ PD3200U

You’ll find monitors from BenQ on any best of list even if you’re not completely familiar with the name, and the PD3200U is one of the best displays the company has ever built.

Designed for digital content creation, the PD3200U has a 20 million:1 dynamic contrast ratio, to give you the blackest blacks and the whitest whites and specialized display modes with tools like Darkroom mode or Low-Blue light mode to make sure the screen looks exactly how you want it. The monitor can even act as a KVM switch if you need to connect more than one computer of any kind.

The BenQ PD3200U comes in around $800, which isn’t a bad price for a 32-inch 4K display with all these features.

See at Amazon

Best 1080p monitor: ASUS VE278H

Manufacturers can do amazing things with the tried and true 1080p panel and the ASUS VE278H is a testament to that. An amazing 50,000,000:1 contrast ratio starts the list of great features, as well as Video Intelligence Technology, an ASUS feature that lets you connect just about any multimedia device as an input rounds it up.

The best feature of a 1080p monitor is the price and you’ll love what you get for just $180 with the ASUS VE278H.

See at Amazon

Best smaller monitor: Acer G226HQL

Don’t have a lot of space on your desk but still want something bigger than the 12-inch display on your Chromebook? Acer’s G226HQL can help.

Its 21-inch footprint means it won’t take up a lot of space and the 1080p panel looks incredibly sharp at this smaller size. The Acer G226HQL doesn’t have the most features of any monitor out there, but the size is right if you’re short on room and the price is perfect at $90.

See at Amazon

Best budget monitor: ASUS VS247H-P

You don’t have to spend a lot to get a great monitor and ASUS proves it with the VS247H.

This 24-inch 1080p monitor has the same features as its 32-inch cousin that was our best overall 1080p choice, but when they are packed into the 24-inch size, you will save a lot of money.

The ASUS VS247H-P comes in right around $140, and it’s a heck of a lot of monitor at the price.

See at Amazon

Your favorite?

Do you use an external monitor with your Chromebook? Which one? Let us know in the comments below!

Chromebooks

• The best Chromebooks
• Should you buy a Chromebook?
• Google Play is coming to Chromebooks
• Acer Chromebook 14 review
• Join our Chromebook forums

‘Alto’s Odyssey’ arrives on the App Store a day early

The buzz around Alto’s Adventure sequel Alto’s Odyssey has been brewing for over a year and now it’s finally arrived — a day early. Originally slated for release on February 22, keen-eyed fans have spotted it in the iTunes store today, meaning players have the opportunity to lose a whole extra day to the addictive infinite runner. As with the game’s predecessor, though, Android users will have to wait before they can contend with the fresh challenges presented by Alto’s desert landscape. In an email to Android Authority, Ryan Cash from Snowman, the team behind the series, said, “We aren’t committing to a release date at the moment, but we’re hoping to get an Android version out in the months ahead.”

Source: iTunes

Renault’s ‘smart island’ runs on wind power and recycled batteries

Renault has launched a “smart island” in Portugal that uses its Zoe electric vehicle, home batteries, smart charging and vehicle-to-grid (V2E) energy storage to run without fossil fuels. The idea is to make the Madeira island of Porto Santo energy independent and stimulate renewable energy production. “[We want] to build a model that can be carried over to other islands and cities,” Renault Electric Vehicle Director Eric Feunteun told Engadget.

Unlike Tesla’s massive Powerpack installation, the Renault project is more of a community endeavor on the small (16 square mile) and sparsely populated (5,483 inhabitants), tourism-oriented island. It will unroll in three phases: In the first, 20 fortunate Porto Santo volunteers will get 14 Zoes and six Kango Z.E. utility vans to use every day. They’ll benefit from 40 new connected public and private charging stations set up by Renault and local utility Empresa de Electricitade da Madeira (EEM).

“Let’s say you come home from work at 7 PM with a decent charge left, and only need two to three hours of charging,” said Feunteun. “The smart charging system we’re testing will decide when the best time to do that is, based on usage, energy availability and other factors. Then, it can charge up to eight times a day in chunks as small as 15 minutes.”

During phase 2, the EV will become part of the grid by feeding electricity back into it during peak hours. That way, the EV owners will not just benefit from the smart charging network but also pay it back by supplying what are essentially mobile home storage batteries. “Electric vehicles have moved from being a constraint, as seen by the energy companies, to an opportunity in the last few months and years,” Feunteun said. “In particular, they provide a way to store electricity, which is one of the key problems on their table with renewable energy.”

In the final phase, Renault will introduce “second-life” stationary “Powervault” and other batteries that have been recycled from its Zoe and other EVs. Those could come from cars that have been in accidents, or from Renault’s recent program that allowed owners to swap the old 22 kWh hour batteries for the new 41 kWh ones. The idea is that even though an old battery isn’t up to the heavy demands of an EV, it’s still plenty useful for supplying homes and power grids.

Those will attach to local solar and wind systems, storing the unpredictable levels of electricity they produce. The energy can then be recovered by the grid as needed, much as Tesla’s Australian Powerpacks can supply energy during peak usage.

Renault teased the idea of combining electric vehicles and homes to form a grid when it launched the Symbioz concept car, complete with its own home. You could pull the vehicle right into your living room (or garage, in the real world), plug it in, and either charge it or give energy back to your home.

Renault

Using EVs in a smart charging network makes a lot of sense, as they can absorb energy when supply exceeds demand (at night, or when the sun is shining) and give it back when everyone needs power. “So if there is really a peak at 7 PM, when everyone is cooking, then the battery continues to empty on the grid,” explained Feunteun. “Then, it will recharge at midnight when it is windy and no one is consuming energy.”

Renault is one of the first companies to test smart charging in a solar and wind energy-powered region, using EVs and home batteries to smooth peak power. The data it gathers will be invaluable when it expands the program to larger eco-districts or cities.

It will even recycle the batteries used on the Porto Santo Zoe and Kangoo vehicles to smooth the power grid, creating a true circular upgrade. “The Madeiro project is one of the most complete electric vehicle green initiatives ever,” said Feunteul. “It brings together all the different ecosystems to create a zero emissions, carbon-free island.”

MLS eSports league’s first tournament streams on Twitch this April

Last month, Major League Soccer became the latest US sports association to create its own eSports league, eMLS, which will exclusively run EA Sports’ game FIFA 18. We knew its first-ever event would be a tournament (the eMLS Cup) at the upcoming PAX East where 19 players, each representing an MLS team, will compete to qualify for the league’s global playoffs. But today, the nascent eMLS has laid out how the tournament will go down — and where folks at home can stream it.

The 19 players will be split into two conferences — ten clubs in the Eastern Conference and nine in the Western. Each competitor will create their own squad of 11 starting players, with seven more on the bench and five in reserve. The catch? Three MLS players have to be on the field at all times, including two from the club that the competitor is representing. Naturally.

The eMLS Cup will start on Thursday, April 5th for preliminary rounds, with the top eight players from each conference progressing to seeded knockout rounds on Saturday before the Cup Final on Sunday. The weekend matches will be held on the PAX Arena Main Stage, but those staying at home can watch it on the PaxArena Twitch channel. The final, however, will also be broadcast on MLS channels, including its website.

The eMLS Cup finalists will earn spots on the EA Sports FIFA 18 Global Series Playoffs, and the top 32 teams there will progress to the FIFA eWorld Cup in August. That, of course, is where the FIFA 18 World Champion will be crowned.

Mike Pence’s space council is big on business, small on science

Yesterday evening, Vice President Mike Pence announced the candidates asked to serve on the National Space Council’s Users Advisory Group. Members will have to be officially selected by the Administrator of NASA (a position which remains open). The selections draw heavily from the space industry, including former astronauts and executives from private spaceflight companies, and a few conservative political appointees.

The full list of appointees is as follows:

• Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11 Astronaut
• Tory Bruno, President and CEO of United Launch Alliance
• Wes Bush, CEO of Northrop Grumman
• Dean Cheng, Scholar at the Heritage Foundation
• Eileen Collins, 4-time Shuttle astronaut, first female shuttle commander
• Steve Crisafulli, Former Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives
• Mary Lynne Dittmar, President and CEO of The Coalition for Deep Space Exploration
• Adm. Jim Ellis, Retired 4-star Admiral, former head of STRATCOM, and member of the Space Foundation Board of Directors
• Tim Ellis, CEO of Relativity Space
• Newt Gingrich, Author, former Speaker of the House
• Marillyn Hewson, CEO of Lockheed Martin Corporation
• Homer Hickam, Author of the book “Rocket Boys” and former NASA Marshall Spaceflight Center engineer
• Governor Kay Ivey, Governor of Alabama
• Fred Klipsch, Founder and Chairman of Hoosiers for Quality Education
• Les Lyles, Retired 4-star Air Force General and member of the NASA Advisory Council
• Pam Melroy, 3-time Shuttle astronaut and former Deputy Director of the Tactical Technology Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
• Dennis Muilenburg, CEO of the Boeing Company
• Fatih Ozmen, CEO of the Sierra Nevada Corporation
• G.P. Bud Peterson, President of the Georgia Institute of Technology
• Jack Schmitt, Apollo 17 Astronaut and former Senator
• Gwynne Shotwell, President and COO of SpaceX
• Bob Smith, CEO of Blue Origin
• Eric Stallmer, President of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation
• David Thompson, Founder and CEO of Orbital ATK
• Pamela Vaughan, Board Certified Science Teacher
• Mandy Vaughn, President of VOX Launch Company
• Stu Witt, Founder of Mojave Air and Spaceport, former Navy pilot, former Chairman of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation
• David Wolf, 4-time Shuttle astronaut and physician
• Pete Worden, Former Air Force General and NASA Ames Center Director

There are definitely some expected names on this list: Executives from Blue Origin, Orbital ATK, SpaceX, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Sierra Nevada, the United Launch Alliance and more are present to represent the interests of private spaceflight companies. There are also military interests, engineers and former astronauts. There isn’t much science represented on this list (though Jack Schmitt was a scientist-astronaut); it makes clear that the focus of this administration in space is on commercial and military applications. And of course, there are also some conservative political appointments, such as Newt Gingrich, Steve Crisafulli and Dean Cheng from the Heritage Foundation.

President Trump revived the National Space Council last year. It will advise the president on matters concerning space and coordinate different sectors, from commercial interests to exploration. The Council is chaired by Vice President Mike Pence.

Why am I so terrible at email?

Ever heard the phrase “run into an asshole and they’re the asshole, run into assholes all day and you’re the asshole?” It’s been rattling around my brain of late, after several miserable weeks caused by my apparent failure to be a good emailer. (Or maybe I’m just an asshole, but since I’m not going to tackle that existential crisis head-on, let’s focus on the emails.)

I’ve been stuck in a rut when it comes to getting responses to my emails, either for comment on breaking news or interview requests. Normally, my phone is in one hand trying to speak to someone in person, while the other is frantically typing out said emails. Several times recently, I’d fire off 30 or 40 delicately crafted missives and get absolutely zero response.

Email is my bete noire, forcing me to spend far too much time each day agonizing and piling through the thousands of digital missives I get on a daily basis. As an emotionally-repressed Brit, I can spend up to half an hour writing a mail before I send it off, so worried about coming off wrong. Is it too forward to use their first name rather than their title? What about just asking for the comment in two lines? I um and aah to myself while trying to phrase things right.

I wish that I could email “like a boss,” that short, ultra-declarative sentences that apparently open up your life to new possibilities. I wish that, in the style of BuzzFeed’s Katie Notopoulos, I could condense all of my emailing down to just a few seconds each day. It would be nice if things were just a little simpler, maybe if the whole world was on Slack, I could just bother them on there instead.

I sought help, calling up upon the experts, including world-renown etiquette expert William Hanson, who explained what I could, and should, be doing better. Hanson feels that auto-responses and platforms like Slack help you “forget the niceties,” and if you forget them here, he says that you’re more likely to “forget them elsewhere.”

Hanson thinks that the issue with most online messaging systems is that they are often designed “by people with poor social skills.” It’s a sentiment echoed by Don Norman, the interaction designer who explained the problems with email to Fast Company in 2015. “Gmail conversations are horrible,” he said, adding that “it’s the wrong mechanism, badly done.” Norman felt that email was being forced to “do everything,” even though it’s “not particularly good at anything.”

Despite email’s obvious flaws, I still need to use it on a daily basis to get folks to talk to me, so what can I do? “It’s important to remember,” says etiquette consultant Jo Bryant, “that all communications are an extension of yourself.” Bryant feels that it’s important to be mindful of “how we make other people feel, which, in itself, is the essence of good manners.” She believes that “taking time to email someone personally, including a salutation and sign off” shows that you have taken care over your correspondence.”

Hanson agrees, and as well as ensuring that you use the proper salutation and sign-off, you need to go the extra mile in your emails. For instance, he says that you should “notice the little details,” such as looking up a pleasant local news event, or the weather, in the location that the recipient lives. The aim is to convey, as Hanson puts it, the sense that “even though we’re miles apart, we’re closer than you think.”

You’ll have to balance all of this courtesy with one other fact: You shouldn’t take too much of your recipient’s time. “It’s bad to be overly verbose,” says Hanson, suggesting that you get to the point without being abrupt. It’s a fine line to walk, especially when you’re looking to make the extra effort to get folks to like you.

The last person I spoke to about my woes was closer to home, my colleague Aaron Souppouris. I showed him plenty of my electronic missives, and he noted that my lack of a “formal greeting, explaining who I am and where I’m from” could be an issue. He added that I shouldn’t look like I believe that I “deserve a response” by virtue of who I was and where I worked. Finally, he suggested that I should “make sure not to overwhelm [recipients] with information.”

I’ve started to cook up a new template onto which I shall craft my emails for the next couple of weeks. I’m hoping that with a little bit of luck, and using these experts’ tips and tricks, I can become the world’s greatest emailer. I’ll also settle for getting a response every now and again.

Thanks for your time and all the best, and I’ll be in touch shortly to apprise you of how the experiment went.

Amazon’s answer to ‘Altered Carbon’ is Iain Banks’ space opera

It appears that Amazon is looking for its answer to Netflix’s crossover sci-fi thriller Altered Carbon. Today, the online retail giant announced that it has acquired the global television rights to Iain M. Banks’ space opera series called The Culture. Amazon Studios will adapt the first novel, Consider Phlebas, for television.

The Culture novels focus on a highly advanced society that goes to interstellar war with a violent race bent on galactic domination. The first book in the series centers on a spy tasked with recovering an AI that has the ability to help win the war. The questions the series poses are the costs of victory, and whether we should use our technology to dominate others at the expense of our own humanity.

Dennis Kelly will adapt the sci-fi drama for Plan B Entertainment (World War Z). The Iain Banks’s estate will serve as an executive producer for the series. “Iain Banks has long been a hero of mine, and his innate warmth, humor and humanism shines through these novels,” said Kelly, who previously adapted Matilda for the stage. “Far from being the dystopian nightmares that we are used to, Banks creates a kind of flawed paradise, a society truly worth fighting for — rather than a warning from the future, his books are a beckoning.”

Source: Amazon

Fire Emblem Heroes Marked as Nintendo and DeNA’s ‘Most Successful Mobile Game to Date’

It’s been just over one year since Fire Emblem Heroes launched on the iOS App Store in the United States, Japan, and over 30 other countries, and this week new data researched by Sensor Tower has titled the app as Nintendo and DeNA’s “most successful mobile game to date.” Over the course of its first year, Fire Emblem Heroes earned an estimated $295 million in player spending worldwide, helped by the game’s free-to-play structure that includes in-app purchases of various items like game-boosting “Orbs.”

The other Nintendo/DeNA apps include the soon-to-be-discontinued Miitomo, Super Mario Run, and the most recent game, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, which has earned about $20 million across the iOS App Store and Google Play Store in the two months since release. In comparison, Fire Emblem Heroes earned $86 million in its first two months after launch, following an initial slow start in the first few days.

Nintendo’s Fire Emblem Heroes is the Kyoto-based gaming giant’s most successful mobile game to date, earning an estimated $295 million in worldwide player spend during its first year of availability, according to Sensor Tower Store Intelligence data.

With players worldwide continuing to spend more than $10 million per month on “luck of the draw” character draws, Fire Emblem Heroes is a clearly a financial success for Nintendo and DeNA. The question now is whether the publisher-developer duo can progress to the next echelon of mobile gaming revenue with future titles, including the recently announced Mario Kart Tour.

In terms of worldwide mobile game revenue, Sensor Tower reported that Fire Emblem Heroes ranked at No. 34 in January on the iOS App Store, while Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp sat at No. 190. Furthermore, Fire Emblem Heroes is said to have been successful both in the U.S. and Japan, with 30 percent of the game’s first year revenue coming from the former country and 60 percent from the latter. For Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, 13 percent of its revenue so far has been made in the U.S., and more than 82 percent comes from Japan.

Although the games support different payment structures, Sensor Tower compared Fire Emblem Heroes with Super Mario Run, which earned $56 million across its first year in worldwide revenue. Super Mario Run was a bigger hit initially as many players downloaded the game in the first few weeks of launch — earning $8.4 million on its first day — but slacked off in subsequent months. The game is free-to-download so that users can play the first few levels, but a $9.99 payment is required to unlock everything.

Chart via Sensor Tower
During Nintendo’s quarterly earnings report last fall, the company admitted that Super Mario Run had “not yet reached an acceptable profit point” ten months after launch, while Fire Emblem Heroes was on track to meet its business and profit objectives. For Super Mario Run, the company stated that it had “learned a lot in terms of game development and deployment,” which it will “take advantage of moving forward.” Nintendo is also reportedly looking for new mobile developers to partner with in addition to DeNA.

While Fire Emblem Heroes has been successful for Nintendo and DeNA, it’s still lagging behind the breakout hits on the iOS App Store, like Clash Royale ($967 million in first year worldwide revenue) and Niantic’s Pokémon Go ($1.1 billion). Nintendo’s next mobile game Mario Kart Tour will be free-to-start, which is terminology that Nintendo has used to describe the in-app purchase model of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. Previous rumors have also stated the company could be working on a smartphone game set in The Legend of Zelda universe.

Tags: Nintendo, DeNA, Fire Emblem
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