Nintendo Stock Soars with iOS Announcement

Following the staggering success of Nintendo’s first dip into mobile gaming, the Japan-based gaming giant looks like it has a second act: Mario Run. The announcement, which opened the show yesterday at Apple’s WWDC, was received with cheers as Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto demoed the one handed game. This surprise announcement that Nintendo’s flagship franchise would debut on Apple’e new iPhone sharply propelled its stock, ending the day with a 13% increase on hopes the firm had at last embraced mobile gaming.

“Launching a well-known Nintendo character on the globally penetrated iPhone is one of the best scenarios that investors have hoped for,” Tomoaki Kawasaki, an analyst at Iwai Cosmo Securities, said.

For years, Nintendo has refused to introduce its best-known characters to mobile platforms in an effort to protect its console business. It finally announced a deal with with mobile specialist DeNA last year, conceding to investor pleas. 

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“It shows the company is now allowing licensing of their characters, which is two-fold,” said Gavin Parry, managing director at Parry International Trading in Hong Kong. “It means the internal philosophy is changing and opening up, and it also means they’re going to get additional income streams, as opposed to their internal or organically generated revenues.”

Nintendo and DeNA partnered on Super Mario Run with Nintendo leading content and DeNA leading backend operations. DeNA shares also jumped 11% following the announcement.

The game is set to be released before the holiday season with no indication of when the game would become available for android.