Pokémon Go, step aside. In the first 24 hours, Nintendo’s Super Mario Run has beaten the record-breaking Pokémon game in terms of day one downloads. According to data from Apptopia, Super Mario Run saw 2,850,000 downloads in its first day on the App Store, compared with the 900,000 Pokémon Go had pulled in when it was first launched. Rival firm App Annie puts the download figures much higher, saying Mario saw 3.5 million downloads just in the U.S. within the first 14 hours. And Sensor Tower is reporting that the app has seen more than 5 million worldwide downloads on day one.

Numbers from other outlets are still coming in.*

App Annie also noted that the app claimed the top spot in the Overall, Games, Arcade and Action category within 4 hours of its debut. Sensor Tower disputes this, saying it took the game 6.5 hours to reach the number one position on the Top Free chart in the U.S. – slower than Pokémon Go’s 5 hours to do the same, when it debuted.

But Mario’s launch versus Pokémon Go’s is not exactly an apples to apples comparison (sorry). Pokémon Go’s worldwide rollout was slower – it was only live in a few countries initially, while the company scaled to meet demand. Super Mario Run, on the other hand, went live in 150 countries immediately.

Regardless of the discrepancies between the firms’ numbers, the figures indicate not only how much pent-up demand there was in the market for a Mario title that could be played on the iPhone, but also how well Nintendo’s marketing efforts – aided by Apple – have helped.

Posted: Dec 16, 2016 4:06 pm
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/16/super-mario-run-sees-2-85-million-downloads-on-day-one-but-half-reviews-are-just-one-star/