Super Mario Run Didn’t Meet Nintendo’s Sales Expectations
Last year, in the month of December, Nintendo had launched Super Mario Run, which was meant exclusively for iOS devices. Just last week, it also hit the Android platforms. In both the cases, the game offers the same payment model. You can enjoy a handful of levels for free, but then there is a payment of $9.99 to be made to play the rest of the game.
The mobile version has pretty much similar game play that we used to have in our video game version.You control Mario by tapping as he constantly runs forward. You time your taps to pull off stylish jumps, mid air spins, and wall jumps to gather coins and reach the goal.
Three Modes.
The game offers three different modes: World Tour, Toad Rally, and Kingdom Builder. You will be able to play all the modes with no additional payment required. You can try out all the three modes before purchasing them.
$10 Price Tag.
There are no further transactions after that initial purchase. $9.99 unlocks all the modes. Still, it’s an auto-runner, and that price is a bit high for the game. But the sales of Nintendo’s mobile game Super Mario Run failed to live up to the company’s expectations. Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima said the revenue generated by the game, which launched last year for iOS and last week for Android did not meet their expectations. The game did not meet Nintendo’s sales expectations, but still Super Mario Run reached 50 million downloads in late December.
After launching on the iOS platform, Super Mario Run experienced a quick rise to the top of the highest grossing and top downloaded charts, but it didn’t stay there for very long. Many players had an issue with the $10 price tag and abandoned the game altogether.
Fire Emblem Heroes.
On the other hand, Nintendo’s strategy RPG Fire Emblem Heroes has a “freemium” price model, and has proven to be a massive money-maker for the company. Despite its success, however, Nintendo has no objective of shifting totally to a free-to-play pricing scheme for all of its future mobile games. Fire Emblem Heroes has earned Nintendo massive sums of revenue. It has been amongst one of the top ten highest grossing mobile games in Japan. Nintendo really doesn’t seem to of that as a big deal.
Fire Emblem Heroes offers you a fully-realized, highly playable game with habit-forming gameplay and all your favorite characters. These games suck you in, let you fall in love, and then tease you with play limits and additional characters that you can unlock by spending money on currency, tickets, lotteries, or energy. These games are called “Gacha” games, and these games rule in Japan.
Reasons Why Super Mario Failed.
There can be many reasons why only five percent of Super Mario Run‘s users purchased the full game. The main reason was its high pricewall. Users can play three levels for free. If they want to unlock the rest of the levels, they have to spend around $10. Given how most mobile games rarely cost more than $5, $10 is no doubt can be a discouragement for many in purchasing the full thing.
One more reason can be that the users have to be connected to the internet in order to play. Even though certain modes in the game require an online connection to work, most of the game is single player. It can be difficult to play the game anywhere that doesn’t have a WiFi connection. This makes it a lot less mobile friendly.
Next Game.
The next Nintendo mobile title will be Animal Crossing. There has not been any discussion about the game or its price. But you will hopefully find out more about the game later this year.
Rajiv Patil is the founder & Managing Director of Nimblechapps, an innovative iPhone app development company. He takes a keen interest in topics related to mobile app development and mobile game development and often like to share his knowledge through informative posts on leading blogging sites.