Super Mario Run Was Huge, But Nintendo Isn't Happy

With all of the buzz surrounding the Switch and Super Mario Odyssey lately, it's been easy to forget about Nintendo's mobile efforts. We've got Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp to look forward to in the months to come, but how are Nintendo's existing mobile games doing? It would seem that Super Mario Run is doing really well, at least from a downloads perspective.

Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima said today that Super Mario Run has hit 200 million downloads worldwide, with 90% of those downloads coming from regions outside of Japan. This includes regions where Nintendo hasn't launched its platforms in the past, potentially giving the Mario franchise broader exposure than it had before.

200 million sales sounds pretty impressive, but unfortunately, those downloads don't seem to have translated to the dollar signs Nintendo was envisioning. Kimishima said that Super Mario Run has "not yet reached an acceptable profit point," which means that while people have been downloading the game, they haven't all been paying for it.

Super Mario Run, as many of you will remember, uses a "free to start" system that allows players to begin playing for free but then locks most of the content behind a pay wall. At $10, Super Mario Run's asking price was a bit on the high side as far as mobile games go, even prompting Nintendo to ask players about their preferred price in a survey that was sent out shortly after launch.

Nintendo said that it has learned a lot from the launch of Super Mario Run, and that it looks forward to applying that knowledge to future mobile games. We'll get to see just what, exactly, it has learned soon enough, as Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is already rolling out in some regions around the world. Did you buy Super Mario Run? Head down to the comments section and let us know!