Nintendo touts Super Mario Run for iOS at Apple’s fall event

Nintendo Co. Ltd. game design mastermind Shigeru Miyamoto got up on stage at Apple Inc.’ s Sept. 7 live event and announced a new Mario game for iOS.

Super Mario Run will be an “endless runner” style game for mobile devices, coming first on iOS. The controls will be simplified from a traditional Mario game to work better with a mobile touchscreen.

The game is coming in December, 2016, and will be a one- time pay as opposed to micro transaction-fuel led game, though a portion of it will be available for free.

“We have created Super Mario Run to be perfect for playing on your iPhone,” Miyamoto said in a release. “Super Mario has evolved whenever he has encountered a new platform, and for the first time ever, players will be able to enjoy a full- fledged Super Mario game with just one hand, giving them the freedom to play while riding the subway or, my favourite, eating a hamburger.”

The game is the second of five announced Nintendo mobile projects, which include the summer sensation Pokemon Go.

Although Super Mario Run will come out first on iOS, Nintendo has said that all of its mobile games will eventually come to Android and its upcoming NX platform.

Super Mario Run underscores how Nintendo is moving away from creating software only for its own hardware, and shifting toward an aim to become a global brand that makes not only games but many other things.

“( A) key thing is that for us, (is that) the mobile initiative is itself a part of a larger plan that we have, which is really to expand the reach of Nintendo characters, Nintendo franchises and Nintendo IP,” Nintendo vicepresident Bill Trinen told Financial Post in the spring, when the company launched it’s first mobile app, Miitomo.