Could Super Mario Run Become the Best-Selling Mario Game?

Predicting where Super Mario Run could sit in the series' pantheon.

By Justin Davis

Mario is finally making his mobile debut next month with Super Mario Run. With more than 2.5 billion iOS and Android devices out there, could the game become the best-selling Mario game ever made?

The short answer is... no. Probably not. But as always, it's a little more nuanced once you dig into it. To start, let's take a look at the current standings for best-selling Mario games:

1. Super Mario Bros. (1985) - 40.24 million
2. New Super Mario Bros. (2010) - 30.79 million
3. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (2009) - 29.32 million
4. Super Mario World (1990) - 21.11 million
5. Super Mario Land (1989) - 18.06 million
6. Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988) - 17.00 million
7. Super Mario Galaxy (2007) - 12.72 million
8. Super Mario 64 (1996) - 11.89 million
9. Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (1992) - 11.18 million
10. Super Mario Bros. 2 (1988) - 10 million

There are countless caveats to attach to these numbers. They're mostly pulled from a Wikipedia page that sources its data from nearly 400 different places. Data for some games, like Super Mario Bros., clearly combines multiple platforms and versions. But other games, like Super Mario 64 and Super Mario 64 DS, aren't combined. For these reasons alone these sales standings shouldn't be taken as gospel. But even so, they serve as a good ballpark. We can say, with confidence, that the top-tier Super Mario games have sold 30-40 million copies, and any Mario game would need to sell at least 10 million copies to break into the franchise's top tier.

Mobile Best-Sellers

Pent-up demand for Mario on mobile, the overwhelming success of Pokemon Go, and holiday iTunes gift cards burning a people's pockets all-but ensure that Super Mario Run will be a hit. But to get a sense of just how big of a hit it could be, we need to take a closer look at the top-selling premium games on the App Store.

At $7, Minecraft: Pocket Edition is the best-selling version of the game. Concrete stats were last reported in January 2015, when Mojang announced that it had been downloaded 30 million times. Stats from this Summer put Pocket Edition closer to 40 million copies sold. This number has obviously only risen in the past two years.

There aren't reliable sales stats for other premium, high-priced mobile games. We simply don't have reliable figures for how many copies 2K's $20 port of XCOM or Square-Enix's $16 port of Final Fantasy VII have sold. And even if we did, they wouldn't be a great point of comparison for Super Mario Run, since they're classic ports rather than original made-for-mobile games.

We do have a few other spotty stats on big mobile hits we can draw some conclusions from. Monument Valley has, against all odds, grown into a worldwide phenomenon. And it's been purchased 5.1 million times in its first two years. A Dark Room was a big hit in its own right, topping the charts for half a month and selling steadily ever since. It has sold around a million copies in its first two years. Neither game is anywhere near Super Mario Run's $10 asking price. But they also don't have Mario's brand recognition.

These three examples aren't perfect comparisons, and they aren't predictors for Super Mario Run, but they do give us a window into what three levels of success can look like in the mobile games scene.

Even with a high-for-the-platform $10 price tag, it seems very likely that Super Mario Run will shoot up to million-seller status, maybe even many times over, if the game delivers. But it seems unlikely based off the sales data of previous mobile hits that the auto-runner could become one of the best-selling games in the long-running franchise.

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