790,000 doesn't seem that bad to me. Maybe download sales are low but not everyone wants to download games.

Another reason why digital distribution is NOT the future of gaming. HA! Take that Mr. Digital.

Most people just want to get a physical copy of their Mario game as it adds to their collection. Especially of a great series. Also Nintendo is new to downloadable retail. Everything makes sense to me.

I'm going to download it though because I hate game boxes taking up space.

Oh yeah. Just thought about the borrowing games aspect. Mario is popular with kids who like to trade games back and forth. Once I hit my 20's I just prefer every gaming purchase be on a cloud. A cloud with smiley faces on it.

Not too bad considering it is their first digital offering.

Lol well that would make sense when the Digital version costs more than the retail version in some countries.

Lol I guess most aren't used to seeing a full-fledged Mario game being sold through digital.  I myself prefer to have hard copies of those games.

A migrating mollusk always has extra bus fare for the forgetful shrimp, the shrimp forgetting to bring fare since their only concern is cosmetics.

Maybe I'm weird, but I feel like I don't want a mix and match collection of some physical and some digital copies. The main draw of digital games to me is that I wouldn't have to switch out game cards. Since I already have half a dozen physical games I will be switching anyway, I feel like I might as well keep buying physical copies.

For digital copies of retail games to be even a little appealing to me I want everygame available digitally from day one, digital prices to stay in line with physical retail prices and for the games to be tied to an account or ID of some kind so I know if my system goes bad I wont lose my purchases.

It's a tell-tale sign that a series is overused or going down hill when it doesn't even sell good in it's own country. Of course, "good" for Mario is a lot, and that's still more in figures than some games ever make- so I think the series is safe for the time being...

Even though that's low, the game still has good overall sales.

That sucks for nintendo.

I think the doom and gloom for Nintendo has reached its peak and its quite agitating to be honest, I haven't read anything good about Nintendo on GI although I'm fairly new here to the site. To the point, Mario will always thrive in the gaming industry whether people love him or hate him. Just my two cents..

Edit: Most of my purchases are physical copies, digital sometimes. If digital is to become the future then these big companies have to make sure my digital copy is safe at all times.

Sounds about right.I would think given the choice most would pick the boxed game.At least you can sell,trade,or lend it to some one.

5% of total sales sounds low until you realize that's close to 40,000 downloads.

The reason I won't be downloading it is because I don't want to take up too much of my 2GB SD card just for 1 title that I can get on a cart. Simple as that and I would assume the general publics aversion to the digi copy is similar to my own.

This game has been out for not even 3 weeks and it has sold 830K, just in Japan. Everyone knows this game will have marathon legs and sales will boost again in the holiday. Even when Nintendo sells well the haters just move the goal posts that were fine enough standards for "core" focused titles. This game will easily surpass 2 million by the time the Fall rolls around. If people think Super Mario has lost relevance, well Super Mario 3D Land has sold 6.5 million copies and 2.6 million of those were here in the States. 6.5 mil is a lot btw, especially since everyone was supposedly so in love with their smart phones and angry birds that no one would care about it.

Big surprise. Japan doesn't even seem to notice that current consoles get digitally distributed games. But, more importantly, downloading a Mario game? That's just not right - and I'm not talking about, "For tradition's sake". Why would you wait so long for a download to complete on this? Mario games are ubiquitous. I'm not kidding when I say they sell these games at Supermarkets and Convenience Stores. Just walk down a block or two and pick up a copy.

Unless Nintendo lowers the price on the download - and c'mon, they won't - there's no advantage to getting this on the eShop. In fact, they'll be NEGATIVE advantage to buying this digitally in time. Physical games get discounts, whereas digital games (unless you're on Steam or another PC platform) hardly ever get discounted.

Better to have a physical copy than take up all the space on a SD card