Something many news outlets and gamers have suspected for a long has finally occurred. Nintendo is making mobile games. What a crazy time to be alive.
Revealed at the Apple event in San Francisco, CA earlier today, Nintendo revealed that Mario (of course) will star in a full-sized action platformer titled, Super Mario Run. The game has been developed with Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto in conjunction with Nintendo’s continuing partnership with DeNA.
Super Mario Run will consist of several modes. The first follows the traditional Mario gameplay style and has players collecting coins and trying to reach the goal. The second mode is more of a time-trial type mode where players compete against the acrobatic moves of other players who have completed the same course. The final mode allows you to create your own Mushroom Kingdom based upon the results of the competitive mode.
IOS users will be able to download a portion of Super Mario Run for free. Though, if you want to play the entire game, you will need to pay a set purchase price. No pricing has been confirmed and will be revealed upon the games release in December. Nintendo also revealed that they will continue plans to deliver its previously announced mobile titles in the Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem series before the end of March 2017.
Nintendo has been slow to adopt many of the essential aspects of today’s gaming landscape and they have suffered for it. This announcement comes at a time where Nintendo financial performance, specifically sales of the Wii U, have not been performing within the company’s expectations. The eventual release (or just the announcement) of the NX will hopefully please Nintendo’s higher-ups and fans alike. Until that occurs, Nintendo needed to shake things up.
As of October 2015, there are roughly 2 billion smartphone users on the planet Earth. With the release of Super Mario Run, Nintendo will be able to access a market that will have constant access to their games. The success of Pokemon Go shows Nintendo that this market is large, committed, and open to more Nintendo-licensed games.
We will have to wait until December to find out if Nintendo’s foray into the smartphone industry will have a positive effect on their bottom-line.
You can watch the trailer below.
Super Mario Run will be available on iPhone and iPad at some point in December.
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