Shigeru Miyamoto, creative fellow at Nintendo and creator of Super Mario, speaks on stage during an Apple launch event on September 7, 2016 in San Francisco, California. (Photo : Getty Images/Stephen Lam)
Nintendo recently confirmed that "Super Mario Run" will be coming to Android smartphones and tablets in March. There is no certainty yet whether the business model will still be the same.
"Super Mario Run" debuted on iOS in December 2016 as a premium game. It was marked free on the App Store but it turns out that only the first three levels were available. Users were asked to pay $9.99 to access the rest of the game.
Nintendo's move disappointed fans as it mislead them into thinking that it was a free game after all. The Japanese game company announced the Android version in a tweet.
Android版「Super Mario Run」は、2017年3月に配信を開始します。現在Google Playでは、配信開始を通知でお知らせする事前登録の受付を行っています。ぜひご登録ください。https://t.co/2DW2TnCK6d pic.twitter.com/2QbMM6fGRh
— 任天堂株式会社 (@Nintendo) January 18, 2017
Delays are quite common in multi-platform games. The "Super Mario Run" Android delay could just be because of technical problems during porting in the Unity game engine, Tech Crunch has learned.
Porting requires some lines in programming to be rewritten because Android and iOS have different source codes. Directly and automatically porting the game may result in undesired glitches such as unloaded textures or unresponsive controls. It might not even work at all.
Another problem is the business model that Nintendo imposed on the game. Instead of being free-to-play, the game costs $9.99. Nintendo could just made it F2P by adding in-game purchases in "Super Mario Run" such as costumes or other models for the items, Forbes reported.
Customers who ended up paying the premium price still had to grind the levels. If it was an F2P model, they could have grinded but still enjoy the visuals with their own customizations.
In addition, premium Android games are mostly pirated rather quickly. A pirated version of the game could come a few days or weeks after the "Super Mario Run" launch.
Interested users can sign up for notifications when "Super Mario Run" will finally launch on Android through the Google Play Store. The $9.99 premium price may still be implemented.
Watch gameplay of the mobile title below:
