Nintendo appears to be on a winning streak as of late. The company's launch of Super Mario Run - its first attempt to venture into the mobile gaming market, has been widely lauded, having hit 2.85 million downloads on Apple's App Store alone. Said figure conveniently beat the 900,000 first-day record held by Pokémon GO, which the company co-developed with Niantic.
Nonetheless, the Japanese gaming tech giant's latest mobile offering didn't translate to great success in the stock market. Nintendo's shares have nosedived by $2 billion in the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Friday, according to a Sky News report. That's a total of 5% of the company's share value wiped off, although it slightly recovered to 4% upon closing.
The massive drop in share value highlights the pessimism Nintendo's investors have towards Super Mario Run. Despite the game being a novelty in itself - it's the first official Super Mario game on smartphones after all, the price of its full version ($10) had many users baulking, considering that many of the App Store's most expensive apps are priced within the region of $5. What's more, the company doesn't stand to gain massive profits even with substantial sales of the game's full version.
Another reason why Nintendo's investors aren't too keen on an all-positive outlook for Super Mario Run is because the game itself would only run if it's connected through Wi-Fi. Negative reviews have picked up such issue as well, adding that such an added hassle doesn't exactly make the game any different from other runner-type mobile games, Geek has reported.
Despite spooky investor outlooks towards Super Mario Run, the fact that the game has garnered generally positive reviews provides Nintendo a bit of solace over its future mobile plans. The company recently announced that an Android version is currently in the works in time for an early 2017 release. Considering the game's smash-hit status on the iOS, the Android version would most likely extend the game's appeal to an even larger audience. Watch Super Mario Run's gameplay trailer from IGN below:
