Super Mario Run to Make Over $70M In First Month
By Jasmine Henry 06 December 2016
According to analysts, Nintendo’s upcoming mobile platformer Super Mario Run is set to make $71 million in its first month, putting it behind Pokemon GO and Clash Royale.
Super Mario Run, Nintendo’s upcoming mobile platformer, hasn’t even been released yet but analysts are suggesting that the game could be a huge hit. Super Mario Run, which stars Mario as he runs through the Mushroom Kingdom aiming to collect as many coins as possible, has garnered huge attention from fans and it’s expected that this will translate into huge profits for Nintendo.
According to the analysts at app data company Sensor Tower, Super Mario Run‘s pricing model (initially free to play, but $10 to unlock all of the content) will lead the game to monetary success. Based on pre-release sign ups for the game (along with news coverage and word of mouth), the company says that Super Mario Run will earn $71 million in its first month, putting it behind the fastest earning mobile game in history, Pokemon GO (which made $143 million in gross revenue in a month) and Clash Royale ($107 million in its first month).
Additionally, Sensor Tower says that it expects Super Mario Run to get more than 50 million users across in its first month, which would be over 56% more users than Pokemon GO which got an “estimated” 32 million downloads in the same amount of time. Pokemon GO found itself at 75 million downloads soon after, though, so it will be interesting to see whether or not the appeal of Super Mario Run‘s platforming gameplay can lead it to beating that record too.
While these figures are certainly impressive, Super Mario Run has the power to go stratospheric. The game will only be released on iOS during its initial launch and although there hundreds of millions of iPhone and iPad users, there are over 1 billion active Android devices. Super Mario Run will launch on Android in 2017, meaning that until then its success will be somewhat restricted.
It has also been pointed out that Super Mario Run won’t launch in China, either, which could also have a significant impact. Pokemon GO still hasn’t launched in the Asian country, so it’s hard to predict exactly how well Super Mario Run could do, but given that Chinese App Store revenues are expected to reach $4.6 billion this year, the new Nintendo game may miss out on a huge revenue opportunity here.
Nonetheless, an Android release and a Chinese launch will come in good time and Nintendo will no doubt be glad even if Super Mario Run‘s success is just incredible to start with, if not phenomenal.
Super Mario Run will be released on iOS on December 15, 2016.
