THE Nintendo, it seems, remains quite dedicated to the first game of the famous Italian plumber for third-party mobile platforms.
The day before yesterday, the Japanese giant launched version 2.0 of Super Mario Run on the App Store and even made available the long awaited version of the game for Android, potentially attracting more hordes of fans and casual players to the app.
Still, apparently, not everything is just flowers: the game mechanics and the relative ease of Super Mario Run were the targets of criticism, as well as its high price (at least for a smartphone game), of $ 10 to release the complete content.
Perhaps that is why Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima declared in a Japanese publication interview Nikkei that the revenue from Super Mario Run was less than expected; still, however, the company will continue with the scheme in its next titles.
Nintendo's reason for adopting the one-time payment model to gain access to the full game has already been explained on other occasions: the company, which is very dear to children and adolescents, made the decision based on the idea that parents would be more relaxed knowing that their children would not spend absurd sums of money on In-App Purchases (as we have seen happen on several other occasions).
And although the Japanese giant already has other games on mobile platforms with other payment models like Fire Emblem Heroes, which Kimishima calls an “isolated case”, the idea of her continuing to adopt the traditional model going forward.
More concerned is the Japanese giant, according to its CEO, in expanding its intellectual properties to as many players as possible around the world than simply making as much money as it can.
The strategy, of course, makes perfect sense: the more well-known Nintendo franchises are and here we are going to take out the world famous ones like Mario, Pokmon or Zelda and focus on the less celebrated ones, the greater the attraction of gamers to the company's consoles, where the most complete titles live and, obviously, the most significant profit.
The next title of Big N coming to smartphones be the long awaited Animal Crossing, which should be launched this month but has been postponed to some date in the first half.
It is not yet known what will be the payment model adopted for his new game, although, considering the executive's words, it is healthy to bet on a solution similar to that of Super Mario Run.
Nintendo's biggest job in this segment, therefore, is to convince “gamers smartphone ”that exchanging any minor purchases, US $ 1 or US $ 2, for a single purchase of five or ten times this amount can be an attractive option.
Yes, $ 10 is scary at first and it certainly scared a lot of people out of playing Super Mario Run, but on second thought, it might be a more honest strategy than appealing to impulse and unsuspecting children.
What do you think?
(via MacRumors)
