Despite the doom and gloom surrounding the release of Nintendo’s Super Mario Run, arguably the company’s first serious foray into the mobile space, the game is raking in a significant amount of money.
Super Mario Run has been downloaded 78 million times worldwide, with more than five percent of players paying the equivalent of $13.99 CAD to unlock the full version of the game, according to The Wall Street Journal. While this number may sound small, this is an impressive conversion rate for the mobile industry, especially when Super Mario Run’s high price is taken into consideration, with most titles in the $1 to $2 range typically hitting a rate of less than five percent per person.
In total, Nintendo says Super Mario Run has generated a revenue of $53 million USD. While a significant amount of money, the game’s earnings have not hit the triple digit figure Nintendo CEO Tatsumi Kimishima had hoped it would achieve.
This news comes alongside the release of Nintendo’s third quarter earnings report, which saw the company make profit of $569 million from a total revenue of $1.5 billion, with Pokemon Sun and Moon being the most significant profit drivers following sales of 15 million units. The Wii U, however, had a terrible holiday season and only shipped 760,000 units.
The Switch, Nintendo’s next video game console, is set to launch on March 3rd. The company’s next mobile title, Fire Emblem: Heroes, is set to launch on Thursday, with the mobile version of Animal Crossing being delayed until April.
While Super Mario Run offers a polished experience, once you’ve completed each of the game’s tour levels and spent a fair amount of time battling for high scores in the game’s Rally feature, there’s not much to keep players coming back.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
