Nintendo wants Super Mario Run to be as popular as Pokemon Go Hey-a, you! Pikachu! It's-a me, Miyamoto!

In an interview with Bloomberg, Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima said the company hopes to achieve as much success with Super Mario Run as Niantic (and the Pokemon Company and Nintendo) have achieved with Pokemon Go.

"In terms of expectations, we all saw what happened when we delivered Pokemon Go," Kimishima said. "And honestly I was quite surprised by it myself. There's no doubt that more people are using smartphones to play games. And as this time we're using Mario, that's a very important intellectual property for us."

Kimishima said that Miyamoto, specifically, is leading the charge to make sure Super Mario Run "spreads out" as rapidly as Pokemon Go did upon its release earlier this summer. Niantic's AR phenomenon recently earned the distinction of earning $600 million in revenue faster than any other mobile game.

Nintendo has reason to set its sights high—20 million reasons, in fact. "And as Tim Cook mentioned, more than 20 million people have already registered to receive notifications when the game is available," Kimishima said.

Super Mario Run will be a free-to-play game, with a sizable chunk of content available to play. An optional, one-time transaction unlocks the rest of the game. "And that should give peace of mind that kids can play it. And we're hoping that will help it become more popular," Kimishima said.

Kimishima and Bloomberg covered lots of ground in their interviews, including the president's surprise at the market's poor reaction to Nintendo's Switch announcement last week and the company's philosophy toward smartphone games.

Super Mario Run is due to launch on iOS this December.