Super Mario Odyssey Sells 2 Million Copies In 3 Days

Earlier today, Nintendo released its financial earnings report for the six-month period ended on September 30, 2017. It was a great report for the company. Now Nintendo has released its earnings presentation materials, giving us a bit of additional detail on that success.

Tucked towards the tail end of the presentation is information about how well Super Mario Odyssey has done since its launch last week. According to Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima, Mario's latest is off to a great start.

"While about 7 million units of Nintendo Switch hardware have been delivered into the hands of our consumers around the world, we estimate that the global sellthrough of Super Mario Odyssey has already exceeded 2 million units in just its first 3 days. The holiday sales season will soon go into full swing, and we plan to make more Nintendo Switch systems available in the market," said Kimishima.

There were other interesting tidbits about Switch console use and demographics in the presentation. The system has two operating modes, Docked and Undocked. Apparently, around 18 percent of people play primarily in Docked mode, 30 percent play primarily in Undocked mode, and the rest play in both modes equally.

In an email survey of users with Nintendo Accounts and Nintendo Switch (US only), the demographics definitely skewed older and male. For Nintendo, this is seen as another area of growth for the Switch.

"As you can see, purchases are primarily made by male consumers in their 20s and early 30s. The results also show good interest among consumers in the 10 to 19 age range. This lets us look forward to future growth in our consumer base," said Kimishima. "Having a broader consumer base will make it even easier for software publishers to do business. Based on the data at hand, we can see that the growth of our appeal among children and female consumers is beginning, more so for the Japanese market than for the US and European markets."

It's likely that the demographics skewing older is what Pokemon Company CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara was referring to when he said "there needs to be one more step to attract a wider audience," in regards to the Switch. For the system to continue its growth, it has to appeal and sell to many demographic groups.

Of course, if any game is going to help the system take that additional step, Super Mario Odyssey is probably it. We'll see how Nintendo does heading into the holiday shopping season.