Nintendo shares have skyrocketed after Apple announced Super Mario is coming to the iPhone
This move is the company’s latest into the mobile gaming space following the success of Pokémon Go.
NINTENDO’S TIE-UP with Apple on a Super Mario app for iPhone is more proof the console-maker could score big in mobile gaming, according to analysts, as its stock skyrocketed on the news.
The deal, announced in the United States Wednesday, will see ‘Super Mario Run’ available exclusively for the Apple smartphone from later this year and follows Nintendo’s huge hit with the Pokemon Go app this summer.
Investors cheered the deal as they pushed the Tokyo-listed stock up 18% in early trade before it finished at 27,955 yen (€244 in today’s money), up 13.2%.
Nintendo shares have been on a tear since the July release of Pokemon Go – making the company more valuable than Sony at one stage – as markets embraced the game as vindication for its long-awaited move into mobile gaming.
After years of pressure, Nintendo – which also created the Donkey Kong and Legend of Zelda brands – abandoned a consoles-only policy and opened the door to licensing some of its characters for mobile game use.
“It is a big deal,” Neil Campling, an analyst at Northern Trust Capital Markets, said of the Nintendo-Apple announcement.
“This venture is perhaps the biggest endorsement we could possibly have imagined that Nintendo’s strategy to monetise their huge franchise IP (intellectual property) on mobile and ex-platform reliant technology is the right one.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook with actress Maddie Ziegler
The deal comes after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last month appeared at the Rio Olympics’ closing ceremony in the mustachioed plumber’s red hat and blue overalls to promote the Tokyo 2020 Games.
Late visionary
In March, Kyoto-based Nintendo released its first mobile game “Miitomo” – a free-to-play and interactive game that allows users to create avatars – as it tries to compete in an industry that has increasingly moved online.
That followed the firm’s announcement last year that it was teaming up with Japanese mobile specialist DeNA to develop games for smartphones based on its host of popular characters.
