Resident Evil 3 is the latest iOS port to suggest there’s practically no demand for years-old console games on high-end iPhones.
Data firm Appmagic estimates that in its nearly three weeks of availability on high-end iPhones, Resident Evil 3 has been downloaded just under 115,000 times, and Capcom has made under $50,000 from the game.
The estimates from fellow data firm Appfigures are even worse. It suggests Capcom has earned under $22,000 from the game to date, with under 54,000 downloads registered.
The title was the latest Capcom console game to have received support from Apple around launch through store featuring and a small amount of social media promotion as it hit the App Store.
Released on March 19, Resident Evil 3 was Capcom’s latest title to arrive only on iPhone 15 Pro and above. It is ‘free-to-start’, meaning after players download the game for free, a limited section of the game can be played before users pay to unlock the full game with an in-app purchase.
The full game unlock is currently $9.99, but the game will go up to around $30 on April 16. It also has a $1.99 ‘All In-game rewards unlocked’ IAP.
As we’ve speculated before, it seems likely that Apple is covering the cost of these console game ports so it can talk about and demo the power of its devices in keynotes. But it has been proven time and time again that these games, which are all exclusive to high-end iPhones, are not commercially viable.
In January, we pulled estimates from Appmagic that suggested the iOS port of Resident Evil 2 took six weeks to earn a paltry $100k.
That followed on from reports back in June and July 2024 that revealed the very low revenue being pulled in by other big-name iOS ports, which had all featured in previous Apple keynotes.
The numbers for Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil Village and Death Stranding were extremely poor for such well-known IP, and as we later reported, the estimated numbers for Resident Evil VII were even worse.
Ubisoft revealed in Apple’s September 2024 keynote that Assassin’s Creed Shadows would be coming to high-end iPads in 2025, though after the game’s delay into this spring, there’s been little news on that one since. Apple also promised an iPad port of No Man’s Sky in 2022, but that appears to be missing in action.
