Investors have welcomed details surrounding the impending debut of Super Mario on your iPhone, and pushed Nintendo shares higher in morning trade.
The Kyoto-based video game and console maker announced overnight that Super Mario Run, a side-scrolling smartphone game based on the iconic Italian plumber, would be available on Apple’s App Store from December 15 in 151 countries. A cut-down version can be downloaded for free, but players will need to pay $9.99 (9.99 euros, or 1,200 yen) for the game in its entirety. An Android version will be available in 2017.And it would seem the market has taken kindly to the details, pushing Nintendo 4.9 per cent higher in morning trade versus a 1 per cent advance for the broad Topix benchmark. The stock had been up as much as 5.3 per cent.
It has been a year of waxing and waning sentiment toward Nintendo. Shares closed 13.2 per cent higher on September 8 following the initial announcement a Super Mario game would be appearing on smartphones before Christmas.
Nintendo has been a long-time holdout when it comes to smartphone gaming, preferring instead to keep its franchises such as Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong and Metroid exclusive to its own proprietary devices.
But there was huge buzz when one of the company’s other success stories, Pokémon, made its way onto mobile devices in July in the form of the augmented reality game Pokémon Go, where players walk around in an effort to catch an array of video game monsters that are overlaid on real-world environments. However, analysts have pointed out Nintendo would only receive a fraction of the game’s gross revenues because it holds only stakes in the app’s developer – Niantic – and the Pokémon Company.
Still exhibiting some reluctance to make an unbridled foray into smartphone gaming, Nintendo last month revealed it would release Switch, a hybrid console with both handheld and home capabilities, in March next year. Investors weren’t entirely thrilled on the day, and pushed shares down 6.6 per cent at the time.