When Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp launched on iOS a few weeks ago, our own Sam Machkovech took it to task for its "hurry up and wait" gameplay loop and in-your-face, hard-sell microtransactions. Now, data from app analysis firm Sensor Tower suggests the game is struggling to bring in much money from players, even after attracting more than 15 million downloads in six days

In a recent blog post, Sensor Tower estimates that Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp has brought in about $10 million in revenue in its first nine days of iOS availability. That might sound like a pretty good start for the game, but it pales in comparison to the $24 million in revenue for Super Mario Run and $33 million for Fire Emblem Heroes in the same time frame after their launches.

Perhaps more worrisome for Animal Crossing's mobile potential, a whopping 86 percent of the estimated revenue so far comes from Japan, with a further 11 percent coming from the US, according to Sensor Tower. That suggests a game with a decent domestic following for Nintendo, but one that seems unlikely to break out into a Pokemon Go-style international hit.

Animal Crossing's early numbers falling behind those for Super Mario Run isn't a very good sign when you consider that Nintendo was disappointed with the paid performance of that earlier mobile title , which saw only 5 percent of players purchase the full game after a free trial. And keep in mind that free-to-play mobile games usually see a quick drop in players after their first few weeks and that more traditional console and portable games from Nintendo tend to maintain healthier sales over long periods of time

This early data doesn't doom Animal Crossing to relatively weak long-term performance, though. Fire Emblem Heroes only attracted 7 million free downloads in its six days but has since gone on to bring in a very healthy $240 million in revenue from about 12 million paid players, according to Sensor Tower. Super Mario Run, on the other hand, brought in over $8 million on its first day before sales and downloads slowed down considerably in the following months.

Somewhere between success and failure

Zooming out, the hit-and-miss performance of Nintendo's mobile games so far could have the company reconsidering how many resources it wants to commit to smartphone platforms going forward. While Nintendo's smartphone titles so far haven't exactly been abject failures, the red-hot sales for Nintendo Switch hardware and games , not to mention the Classic Edition hardware line , makes mobile gaming look like an interesting hobby for the company rather than a major profit-driver.

Then again, Nintendo has said in the past that it sees its smartphone games partly as a form of advertising and brand awareness to attract players to its dedicated consoles. On that score, maybe Nintendo's mobile efforts have been successful in a way not measured by direct revenues.

In any case, Nintendo's fortunes looked very different today than they did in early 2015, when the company first announced its surprising plans to enter the smartphone gaming market . Back then, mobile titles seemed like the company's best hope to stay afloat amid a quickly shrinking market for consoles like the Wii U and 3DS. Today, those mobile games look like a minor distraction from Nintendo's suddenly hot traditional consoles and games.