Mario's first major outing on someone else's hardware is going well so far.

Super Mario Run's $10 asking price and the Internet connectivity requirement may have earned it some poor reviews in the iTunes Store, but they haven't kept the game from being successful. According to a Japanese press release with quotes from both Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto and Apple's Phil Schiller, Nintendo says that the game has been downloaded more than 40 million times in its first four days. The app ranks number one in the "Top Free" charts in 140 countries and is in the top 10 in the "Top Grossing" category in 100 countries.

In Mario Run's case, a download isn't quite the same as a purchase, since the app is free to download but requires a one-time $10 purchase to unlock all of its content; most mobile games are free to download and play but charge money for extra content, power-ups, or in-game currency.

The best-selling console Mario game of all time is the original Super Mario Bros., which sold 40.28 million copies by virtue of being included with most new consoles. The iOS audience is obviously much larger than any given game console's audience, and, as with Pokémon Go, that level of success probably won't be sustainable for very long. That is still a promising sign for Nintendo's mobile gaming efforts going forward.

Super Mario Run isn't Mario's first outing on non-Nintendo hardware—that dubious honor belongs to best-forgotten oddities like Punch Ball Mario Bros., Hotel Mario for the Philips CD-i, and Mario Teaches Typing. But this is the first major effort in many years, and, unlike some of those earlier efforts, it was actually developed and heavily promoted by Nintendo itself.

Still feels it's just an average iOS game with a high price and over hyped...

It's not a surprise that it will outsell the original Mario. Just think how many console is out there then, and how many 'console' is out there now. If you adjust for the different (maybe calculate as a percentage?) then we'll truly see if it's really that big of a seller.