Japanese gaming giant Nintendo has released all but two of its four planned game releases this fiscal year, and from the looks of it, we’re probably getting only two this (fiscal) year. These were Super Mario Run and Fire Emblem Heroes. There are two exciting games in the Nintendo Android pipeline – namely Super Mario Odyssey and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp – but it might be good to take a look at what Nintendo has accomplished to date.
Nintendo announced that Super Mario Run has been downloaded over 200 million times, with 90% of the downloads coming from outside Japan – pretty impressive numbers, as this obviously brings the Super Mario IP to territories that were not being reached by Nintendo before Android. But the company is not happy with the game when it came to sales. Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima said today that Super Mario Run has “not yet reached an acceptable profit point.”
What this means is that people are downloading the game, but are not ponying up the USD$10.00 to unlock the whole game. Remember that Super Mario Run works on the “free to start” model, with one level playable when you download, and the rest unlocked when you pay the whole amount.
Nintendo has probably learned that Android gamers would probably no pay en masse for a game, unless it really convinced them. Also, USD$10.00 is a steep price to pay for a full game – so the company might be tweaking its pricing models when the next two games are launched.
VIA: SlashGear
