First announced in September, Super Mario Run is an upcoming adventure runner starring Nintendo’s most celebrated Italian plumber. It will require an Internet connection at all times, and will be a free download to begin with, but players will be charged $9.99 USD for the full experience.
In an interview on Glixel, Shigeru Miyamoto opened up about Nintendo’s relationship with Apple, and why Nintendo wanted to avoid the free to play space:
“We really didn’t want to do something in the free to play space, but in order to make sure we had the opportunity to do what we wanted [offer a taste of the game for free, and charge $9.99 to unlock the whole thing], we had to talk to the people who are actually running the shop. Naturally the people on the App Store initially told us that the free-to-play approach is a good one, but I’ve always had this image that Apple and Nintendo have very similar philosophies. As we started working together, I found that to be true and they became very welcoming of trying something new.”
Super Mario Run is releasing on December 15 for iOS devices. The decision to release on iOS first is due to stability issues. An Android version is expected to release sometime in 2017.
