Super Mario Finally Debuts to The iPhone

Coming in as a surprise for media outlets and Nintendo fans alike, Nintendo suddenly dropped by at last Wednesday's iPhone 7 launch event to announce the arrival of "Super Mario Run" for the iOS.

Nintendo chief designer Shigeru Miyamoto himself made the reveal for the said game.

It is a totally unexpected move, granted Nintendo's longtime reluctance to jump to the mobile platform. While it will be made available for iPhones initially, Android users will definitely get their hands on the game in a later time.

In recollection, Nintendo held steadfast to their beloved franchised characters' respective IPs, prompting them to avoid embracing offers of any kind to join the mobile craze. To compensate, Nintendo developed side apps and downloadable games for two of its flagship gaming devices, the Nintendo 3DS, and the Wii U.

It would also seem like investors are placing their stakes on "Super Mario Run," hoping that it will match the same magnitude of acclaim as Niantic's "Pokemon GO."

"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.

On the other hand, Shigeru Miyamoto revealed during an interview with The Verge that it took his team long enough to figure out ways on bringing the "Super Mario" franchise to casual gamers and non-playing fans. "Over the years in our own experiments on our own platforms, we had come up with some ideas for how to make Mario simple for people who don't play Mario games." Miyamoto further added, "One of the ideas we were working on we felt was too simple for a home console device, and ultimately that was the one we decided to bring to smartphones."

"Super Mario Run's" mechanics is simple: In portrait mode, you goad Mario as he runs automatically across familiar stages in the "Super Mario" franchise, such us tunnels, flaming castles, and even underwater.

Miyamoto was also inspired by Pokemon GO's successful launch, which catapulted him to finally embrace the mobile gaming culture.

"Pokemon Go is obviously a game that uses your GPS and it's synced into the camera and Google Maps, so it's a piece of software that's really geared towards that mobile play experience. So, similarly with Mario, what we're looking at is simple game play, one-handed gameplay; shorter play time, playing in shorter bursts; and then really bringing the joy of Mario to that much larger audience."

You may view the trailer for the game below.