发帖
雷达卡
TECH
Nintendo’s ‘Super Mario Run’ Scores Revenue, but CEO Wants More
Weak yen, better-than-expected mobile sales boost profit, but not to goal level
By TAKASHI MOCHIZUKI
Updated Jan. 31, 2017 6:48 a.m. ET
0 COMMENTS
OSAKA, Japan—Nintendo Co. said its smartphone game “Super Mario Run” has brought in more than $50 million since going on sale in December, a performance analysts said was better than expected, although Nintendo’s chief executive wasn’t satisfied.
“Super Mario Run,” released for Apple Inc.’s iPhone in December, has been closely watched because it is the first time Nintendo has put one of its leading characters in a smartphone game instead of games for Nintendo’s own hardware.
Initial results released Tuesday show the Mario game has been far more successful than the typical smartphone game but still may not bring in enough revenue by itself to significantly boost Nintendo’s bottom line.
“Super Mario Run” for Apple iOS devices has generated more than 78 million downloads globally, Nintendo said. More than 5% of those have paid the $10 charge required to unlock the game’s full content, bringing in more than ￥6 billion ($53 million) in revenue so far, it said.
“For a game that charges this much, the performance is pretty amazing,” said Serkan Toto, a Tokyo-based mobile game consultant. He said even games that charge only a dollar or two for in-game items usually convert fewer than 5% of downloaders into paying customers.
Nonetheless, Nintendo Chief Executive Tatsumi Kimishima said he wasn’t satisfied with the initial results because the company had aimed to achieve a double-digit paying rate. Nintendo plans to release “Super Mario Run” in March for smartphones and tablets running Google parent Alphabet Inc.’s Android platform.
Nintendo’s share price fell after “Super Mario Run” was released, in part because the price was seen as expensive. However, some users said they liked the idea of paying $10 to unlock all the game functions, rather than paying $1 or $2 for some functions and constantly being pestered to spend more.
“It made me feel safe to download,” said Taku Ojima, a 24-year-old game fan who lives in Miyagi prefecture north of Tokyo, who said he hasn’t paid for extra functions on other free-to-download games.
Nintendo isn’t ruling out other ways of making money from smartphone games. Pokémon Go, a smash-hit game app developed by a Nintendo affiliate, charges small amounts for in-game features such as incense to attract virtual Pokémon creatures. That payment model was adopted by Nintendo for the smartphone version of its Fire Emblem game, which it plans to release next month.
Mr. Kimishima said Nintendo would release more smartphone games including “Animal Crossing,” which was originally planned by March but now is set to come in April or later.
The contribution from “Super Mario Run” was one of the brighter spots in Nintendo’s October-December earnings. The Kyoto-based company reported net profit of ￥64.7 billion, more than double the year-earlier level, a figure it said was boosted by the weak yen. Revenue declined 21% year over year to ￥174 billion because the videogame business fell below expectations.
For the current fiscal year to March 31, Nintendo forecast a net profit of ￥90 billion, up from the previous forecast of ￥50 billion because of the exchange-rate effect.
During the October-December quarter, Nintendo’s console business was weak because the company is phasing out the Wii U, the unpopular device it released in 2012, to focus on the Switch machine it plans to sell starting in March. Mr. Kimishima said preorders of the Switch were strong and the company was ramping up production.
Elsewhere, the aging 3DS hand-held system did better thanks to new Pokémon games released in November. Nintendo now plans to sell 7.2 million 3DS units in the current fiscal year, up from a previous forecast of six million, but the device itself isn’t that profitable, Nintendo said.
京公网安备 11010802022788号
