Nintendo's Dr. Mario World Starts Strong for Its Genre with 2 Million Installs and $100,000 Spent in 72 Hours

Nintendo's fifth mobile game, Dr. Mario World, has been available globally for just over 72 hours and Sensor Tower Store Intelligence data reveals that more than two million players have signed on for the Kyoto-based company's latest treatment of the classic puzzle game series so far. In addition, our estimates show that players have spent more than $100,000 on in-app purchases in the title to date.

The chart below illustrates how Dr. Mario World's first 72 hours stack up against Nintendo's four previous mobile game launches during the same time period, in terms of both gross player spending and installs.

Dr. Mario World's performance during its first three days of availability places its total downloads at about half of Super Mario Run's iOS-only figure of 4.3 million (it was available exclusively on Apple's platform at launch) and that of Fire Emblem Heroes at 4.9 million, when comparing the same markets. (Dr. Mario World is currently available in a portion of total global app markets.) Furthermore, its total is one-third of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp's six million. It managed close to seven times as many installs as Dragalia Lost in its first 72 hours, but that title lunched in just five markets, the largest of which were Japan and the United States.

The performance of Dr. Mario World in terms of downloads so far is not surprising, given that it is not one of Nintendo's top tier franchises like Super Mario, Fire Emblem, and Animal Crossing. It's also true that the title did not receive the same degree of pre-launch marketing as those franchises prior to their arrival on mobile.

Revenue Is Healthy Compared to Genre Leaders

Analyzing Dr. Mario World's revenue thus far, we see that it is the lowest grossing of Nintendo's mobile releases at this point in its launch window at an estimated $100,000 spent by players. By comparison, Fire Emblem Heroes took in $11.6 million in the same markets during this period, while Dragalia Lost's five markets generated $250,000 in spending in its first 72 hours.

It's important to put Dr. Mario World's performance here into perspective, as its monetization methods differ greatly from Nintendo's other titles (ex: Super Mario Run's try-before-you-by model and Fire Emblem Heroes' gacha mechanics). Its monetization is more akin to other titles in the broader puzzle game genre, such as the latest release from Candy Crush Saga maker King, Candy Crush Friends Saga. In comparison to King's title, Dr. Mario World is holding its own, generating about 73 percent of Friends Saga's $137,000 first-three-day gross revenue in the same markets, and this is compared to King's finely-tuned monetization model which has been perfected across four titles and nearly seven years.

We'll have more on Dr. Mario World, which is currently the No. 1 free iPhone app in Japan and No. 6 in the U.S., as its global launch progresses.