Super Mario Run: Nintendo shares plunge amid bad reviews, reducing company’s value by $2 billion

The falling share price appears to be the result of worries about whether interest in the game will convert into profits

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Nintendo has launched Super Mario Run, its first game for iOS, and found itself worth $2bn (£1.6bn) less than when it started.

The game received huge amounts of hype for its combination of nostalgia and excitement, and as a signal that Nintendo might look to move more of its games off its less popular consoles. But it has already been hit by some backlash over its high price and a play-mode that only works if gamers have an internet connection.

Those concerns appear to have dragged down Nintendo’s share price, which fell by about 5 per cent in the wake of the release. That meant that the value of the company dropped by around $2bn.

Super Mario Run is free to download. So for Nintendo to make any money they will have to rely on gamers paying a $9.99 fee to unlock later levels of the game.

That might be tough because of the backlash that has greeted the game in early reviews. While being praised for bringing the Super Mario characters back to life on the App Store, it has also been criticised for the online-only mode and the fact that it borrows its mechanics from other popular games.

That hasn’t stopped the game from shooting to the top of the App Store, however, where it is currently the most popular app available on the iPhone.

It hasn’t yet been released for Android – and in the meantime a run of knock-off versions have appeared – but Nintendo has said a version will be coming to the Play Store at some point.

The same thing happened with the release of Pokemon Go, which led to a huge increase in the value of Nintendo – until people realised that it didn’t actually make any money from the popularity of the game, and its valuation fell again.