Kimishima: Revenue From Mario Run Did Not Meet Our Expectations

[Nautilus]

Mummelmann said:

So, their plan is still to spread awareness of already world famous mascots in the mass market segment via mobile apps that can be had for basically nothing (which also seems to be the valuation of it by the average consumer) and believe that consumers will somehow go crazy and shell out 299$ for a tablet that has zero tablet functionality but plays video games that happens to have said mascots in them? Solid thinking, I think it will be a great long term success for them.

PS: Don't say "look at what Pokemon did!" and think this means instant global succes for Switch. It's an old and poor argument by now.

You are right.They wont shell out 300 to buy a tablet.They will shell out 300 to buy a Switch.

It is harder to determine if Super Mario Run was successful in what it was supposed to do(which was spread brand awareness, which no one can deny that Nintendo has lost some), simply because there is no new Mario game, a big Mario game, to be used as a reference.And even if it did, it would be hard to say how much was the game doing in its own merit and what was due to the mobile strategy.And as far as we know, the Switch has been selling out everywhere, and the 3DS is still going well for a system on its 7th year.And not to mention that Nintendo stocks have been on the rise the past few months.So as far as we know, the strategy has been working.

 

And you cant come and say "But hey, ignore that one game that has worked way too well, because its Pokemon and its an exception and bla bla bla", because thats not how things work.If it was done once, it can be done more times.The problem with Super Mario Run was the pricing.10 dollars was too steep.It should have been 5 dollars máx.Hopefully Nintendo will get better over time and fix these decisions as they go.