Nintendo Earns A Lot Less Off Pokemon Go Than You’d Think

It goes without saying that the devil’s in the details. Apparently, that applies to Nintendo’s balance-sheet as well. Pokemon Go has generated a lot of cash, in very little time. But how much of that actually goes to Nintendo? Bloomberg financial analyst Luke Kawa had this to say about Nintendo, Pokemon Go, and monies.

Well, reading the fine print, Nintendo doesn’t exactly own the Pokemon brand outright. The Pokemon IP is held by The Pokemon Company, which in turn is a 33-34-33 split between Japanese developers Creatures, Game Freak, and Nintendo. Right off the bat, that means that 2/3 of Pokemon Go’s profit isn’t directed toward Nintendo. But wait, there’s more!

Apple’s App Store policy means that’s the iPhone maker gets a 30 percent cut on revenue before the three-way revenue split between Nintendo, Creatures, and Game Freak. Pokemon Go has reportedly generated 14.03 million dollars in revenue since last week. A bit of math tells us that Nintendo’s share of the pie is ((14,030,000 * 0.7) / 3)) which is (drumroll) $3,273,666.67. Which is actually still a lot of money generated in a single week.