From Jimmy Fallon to our smartphones
Let’s take a step back and go back to the last months of last year, where a smiling Reggie Fils-Aime presented at The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy
Fallon and featured, in addition to an almost definitive prototype of Switch, also Super Mario Run, the first ever Nintendo title to land on mobile. Initially thought-presented only for iPhone, a few days later
its Android counterpart was immediately announced but with a release date yet to be defined. In a festive climate surrounded by scolding applause, the internet went to war, militarily deployed to various schools of thought, creating armored keyboard resistance pockets, perpetually conflicting among them. “Nintendo has betrayed its traditional love of video games,” “Nintendo is the home of handicrafts,” “Nintendo finally decides to open its doors
to new business streets, finally a radical change in its isolationist philosophy, the end of the Hikkomori era, “are just some of the hints of debated debates on the Net for the announcement only. At the time of release, it is not that things have gone better. Present
ed as a free game,Super Mario Run allows everyone to play only the first three levels, if you want to unlock the game you have to pay ten euros. An important figure considering the current mobile market dominated by freemium and free games. So no micro-transition on the horizon in Nintendo’s plan
s, lost in the immense big solar disk represented by the demand of those fateful ten euros, the boss of the discord of endless debates. Whether it’s a little or a lot, it will not stand to tell me, what I can say, even net of the many enthusiastic reviews, is that
Super Mario Run , in its hybrid platform and endless run, is in any case a packaged and embroidered product Often opposed to the success of a product with its actual quality,you can not avoid throwing an eye on the first conversion data that Nintendo has had to analyze thoroughly before proceeding further . When talk
ing about conversion data, we talk about the exact number of all those users who once downloaded Super Mario Run on their devices actually paid the ten euros required. I’m telling myself: few, quite a few to convince Nintendo to anticipate the release on Android, thinking it could be a good solution. And, given to the hand, there was nothing wrong with it
Is a pirate sailing what I see on the horizon?
It is a few days ago that Nintendo’s press release announcing, with delusional disappointment, that conversion rates on Andorid are currently very low, over 10 million download downloads. Some estimates say it is around 5%, too low even with respect to the IOS conversion rate, which certainly did not shine for revenue. The reason for this difference is certain
ly the profoundly different nature of the user in question, considering the heterogeneity of which is the jungle of Android users. By leaving specific industry surveys, however, one that looks at first is that the release of Super Mario Runon Android could define the contours of a defeat sound for Miyamoto and comrades. A defeat that, in the light of the facts, cou
ld be anticipated and perhaps prevented. The reason is simple and it was the same that caused the many hesitations that led the Kyoto House to wait as much as possible (ie to see how sales went on IOS) before attempting a last rescue launch, out of time hoping for a miraculous homerun; but so, at least to date, it was not.
This is because Nintendo voluntarily underestimated the users of a free platform, which, in fact, was also free to pirate its title. If you do not say, that is, two hours after the release of the application, the first hackers had started scrolling through .apk Rivers with the full game matrix. An error that surely lies in the trust of the same players Nintendo thought would be able to “save” by offering them a quality game, thought to be all round, that would preserve the spirit that characterized the Great N.
