Hitman: World of Assassination is the latest catalogue console game to launch on iOS as a ‘free-to-start’ game with a console-style IAP price: $70.
But as we’ve reported several times before, previous catalogue console game ports have not performed well on mobile, to say the least. Is Hitman destined to repeat the pattern?
Regular readers will know that the 2024 Assassin’s Creed, Resident Evil and Death Stranding ports bombed on mobile, and more recently, Capcom’s port of Resident Evil 2 earned just $100k in its first month on the App Store, according to Appmagic data.
And since then, several other high profile console games have made their way over to mobile with similarly poor results.
Capcom’s latest port, Resident Evil 3, was released on the App Store for selected high-end devices in March, and has performed even worse than its predecessor. Appmagic estimates suggest that since launch it has attracted just 191k downloads and generated around $112k in revenue for Capcom.
Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown has fared a little better, as it is currently priced at $14.99 and its play patterns are more mobile-friendly. Appmagic estimates suggest that since it launched in April, it has earned Ubisoft $414k from 2.4m downloads.
It’s too early to judge the success or otherwise of Hitman: World of Assassination, of course, but it is at least trying something new. All of these previous catalogue console game ports (except Death Stranding) have been ‘free-to-start’, with a paywalled, full game unlock pop-up triggered after a set time or when the player reaches a certain level.
The new Hitman mobile port has that full price $70 paywall to unlock the full game, but it also offers mission-by mission IAPs for $3 each. Since launch on August 26, Appmagic estimates suggest it has earned IO Interactive about $15k from 24k downloads, a better revenue-per-download rate than those previous games – likely because of the more snackable IAPs.
But still, the question remains: why are console game-makers persisting with these ports, given their incredibly poor performance? We have previously speculated that Apple has covered the costs of some or all of these ports, so that the iPhone maker can showcase the power of its chips in its keynotes. But Hitman and IO Interactive have not appeared in an Apple keynote to date (though the iOS launch was announced around WWDC – perhaps it got cut from the show at the last minute?).
See above for an overview of the estimated downloads and revenue of those previous console ports. All of the data used in this article are Appmagic estimates, and revenue figures do not include Apple and Google’s 30% cut of all IAPs.
It is worth noting that, as above, 505 Games’ Death Stranding appears to have performed better in terms of revenue as a more straightforward premium download compared to the free-to-start model.
It’s also worth adding for context that the combined lifetime revenue from all of these console-to-mobile games in the table above – just over $4m – is roughly equivalent to just one day of IAP revenue from a top grossing free to play mobile game like Royal Match, Candy Crush Saga or Monopoly Go.
