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Nintendo to close Dr. Mario World after barely two years live

Worst performing mobile game from Nintendo to-date

Nintendo to close Dr. Mario World after barely two years live

Nintendo has announced that Dr. Mario World will shut down permanently later this year.

The decision follows the game's two year anniversary earlier this month after it originally launched on July 9th, 2019.

Dr. Mario World initially got off to a strong start, accumulating five million downloads within 10 days, however, reception was poor and the game struggled to maintain an audience. This culminated with the match-three puzzler earning $1.4 million in revenue in its first month of being live - the lowest number made by any mobile game from Nintendo.

The project was co-developed by Line Corporation (Disney Tsum Tsum), NHN Entertainment (RWBY: Amity Arena) and Nintendo. It was the fifth mobile game from the Japanese developer since it began experimenting with the market in 2016, starting with Super Mario Run.

In recent years, though, the company has been moving away from mobile, with only a Pikmin AR game in the works for the platform, alongside Pokémon GO creator Niantic.

November end

"Thank you for playing the Dr. Mario World game," wrote the blog post.

"We would like to extend our sincere thanks to everyone who has played the game since it began service."

Dr. Mario World will officially cease all operations on November 1st, 2021. Additionally, diamonds (in-game currency) will no longer be available for purchase from July 28th.

After the game has closed, players can view their play history via a new web page that will be created specifically called Dr. Mario World Memories.

We previously discussed what happened to Dr. Mario World and why the game felt out of place when compared to Nintendo's other offerings on mobile.

Meanwhile, Nintendo veteran games designer Shigeru Miyamoto recently admitted that he is obsessed with Pokémon GO.


Deputy Editor

Matthew Forde is the deputy editor at PocketGamer.biz and also a member of the Pocket Gamer Podcast. You can find him on Twitter @MattForde64 talking about stats, data and everything pop culture related - particularly superheroes.