Nintendo Is Bringing Mario To The Battle Royale Market

Nintendo Co., Ltd NTDOY celebrated the 35th anniversary of “Super Mario Bros.” with several game announcements and special events.

Nintendo announced a list of upcoming Mario games that includes “Super Mario 3D All Stars,” “Super Mario 3D World Deluxe,” “Super Mario Bros 35,” and “Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit.”

Why It’s Important: “Super Mario Bros 35” is a new battle royale game featuring 35 players competing in the original “Super Mario Bros” game levels. The game launches Oct. 1 and will as of now be a limited time release ending March 31, 2021. The game is also exclusive to Nintendo Switch Online users, who pay $20 a month for the service.

“Super Mario Bros 35” allows users to see all their opponents on screen and send defeated enemies to other players in a battle to be the last Mario standing.

Battle Royale's Popularity: The battle royale genre has dominated video games for several years. The genre has also been a strong performer on gaming streaming sites like Twitch, which is owned by Amazon.com AMZN. “Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout”, a non-shooter battle royale, has been successful despite the market being dominated by shooting royale games like “Fortnite,” “Apex Legends,” “PUBG,” and “Call of Duty: Warzone.”

On Twitch, “Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout” is a top-five most streamed game. The game is currently averaging over 117,000 streams a day and represents 5% of all Twitch streams.

Nintendo has not faired as well on Twitch, possibly due to its games being exclusive on the Switch, which is harder to stream. "Super Smash Bros.: Ultimate” is currently Nintendo’s highest streamed game on Twitch with a seven day average of 2,760 viewers and a peak of 272,231 set back in August 2019. “Fall Guys” saw over 708,000 viewers during its peak in late August of this year.

It's A Me: The Mario brand continues to be a huge piece to the Nintendo puzzle. In July, Nintendo had “Paper Mario: The Origami King,” “Animal Crossing: New Horizons,” “Ring Fit Adventures,” “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe,” and “Super Smash Bros.: Ultimate” all in the NPD’s top 10 monthly sales.

“Super Mario Bros 35” will be exclusive to the Nintendo Switch gaming platform. With Sony Corporation SNE and Microsoft Corporation MSFT both launching new consoles this holiday season, it's important for Nintendo to continue to strengthen the Switch.

Nintendo reported Switch sales of 5.68 million in the first fiscal quarter. The device has sold more than 61 million copies since launching in 2017. The company is forecasting to sell 19 million Switches in the current fiscal year.