40 million people downloaded 'Super Mario Run' in its first few days
Nintendo
"Super Mario Run" can officially be called a smash hit.
The new smartphone game, which debuted last Thursday, surpassed 40 million downloads in its first four days on the App Store, according to Nintendo.
The app has broken an App Store record for the number of downloads during that time period, and "Super Mario Run" now ranks first in the App Store's free games category in a 140 countries worldwide, the company says.
This is the first time since the game's launch that the company has released official numbers. Previous reports of the number of downloads varied — Apptopia said the game was downloaded 2.85 million times in its first day, while App Annie pegged the number closer to 10 million.
And a report from Monday claimed that "Super Mario Run" had been downloaded only 25 million times after four days and had earned more than $21 million in revenue. But even at 25 million downloads, the report said it was a record — it took 11 days for "Pokémon Go" to reach the milestone, although that game was only available in the US, Australia, and New Zealand at launch.
Nintendo hasn't said yet how much the game has generated in revenue. While "Super Mario Run" is free to download, it costs $9.99 to unlock the rest of the game.