http://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/Nintendo-chases-more-than-profit-with-Super-Mario-Run

"Super Mario Run" was greeted with much fanfare after its surprise announcement last year at an Apple event. The game enjoyed a strong start in the App Store, topping download charts in several countries. Yet it was less of a moneymaker for Nintendo than might have been expected, due to the pay-once-and-play model. Revenue from the game "did not meet our expectations," Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima said.

Even so, Nintendo has no intention of switching focus to freemium games. "'(Fire Emblem) Heroes' is an outlier," a senior company official said. "We honestly prefer the 'Super Mario Run' model."

Nintendo aims to do more with its smartphone games than make money. The Japanese company seeks to bring its games and characters to a wider audience and create synergy with game consoles such as the new Switch.

The problems with the gacha model, such as the large amounts of money often required for success, risk undermining the value of Nintendo's characters, which in turn could dent the company's bread-and-butter console-game business. Nintendo's apparent goal with smartphone games is to attract more users even if the company loses out on some profits in the process.

Nintendo doesn't want to devalue their software, and that's why they are trying to avoid the freemium model as much as possible. But if their goal is to improve their IP's popularity, freemium is the best way to go. Not that many people (on mobile devices) are going to pay the outrageous amount of 10€ to play a watered down Mario game, when they can find for free dozens of other options.

^
Look what GO did for Sun/Moon

That's the thing, are they using mobile for advertisement or preparing the ground for a mobile future?

The said they'd do the former, but the comment seems they want to make a viable sector for the latter.

If their main goal isn't necessarily making money why are they disappointed? They can't be that disappointed if they want to stick with the model that makes them less money.

And Mario Run was pointless due to no releases of actual Mario games on 3ds/Wii U/Switch. They promoted.. nothing with this app?

Good on Nintendo, sticking to their guns! Almost makes me want to go out and buy Super Mario Run myself. Freemium BS is the reason a stay away from Android gaming.

I think they would have made more money if it wasn't so pricey. No one is asking them to go freemium but there are tons of paid games on mobile which cost less, are very enjoyable and offer much more content. Asking $10 usd for mobile was just cray cray imo. It should have been $5 or less. It having drm doesnt help either. Hopefully Nintendo learnt some lessons from this and how to price their future games because the #1 complaint is the price looking at dem user reviews.

Super Mario Maker on 3ds released close to it and it did pretty well. It's effect might have been very limited by the ongoing pokemon craze and the 3ds being outsold constantly though.

Mario Maker 3DS I think. 

Pokemon Go is one of those things ... I dunno if we'll see that again for a long time. Animal Crossing iOS/Android could be big if they handle it right.