Super Mario coming to smartphones

After weeks of speculation regarding the exact release date of the first ever “Super Mario” mobile gaming application, Nintendo recently revealed that “Super Mario Run” will be available in iPad and iPhone devices starting on December 15.

Nintendo announced a new game called Super Mario Run which will be an iOS exclusive at launch but will find its way to Android sometime in the future. “Once the game has been downloaded, a one-time payment of $9.99 (United States price) will grant unlimited access to each of the three modes in this release”, a press release from Nintendo reads.

Nintendo recruited Japanese mobile specialist DeNA a year ago to develop its mobile games with help from Shigeru Miyamoto – the legendary creator of Mario and other Nintendo classics.

“Super Mario” is one of Nintendo’s most famous games, with the whole franchise selling over 500 million units, according to research firm VGChartz. This is the price of a monthly subscription to Netflix or Spotify and it is much cheaper than a traditional game console, he said. In addition to English and Japanese, Super Mario Run will be available in several other languages, Nintendo said in a statement yesterday.

Thankfully, after all, the hard work of certain developers, you can now experience Nintendo DS games on your iPhone or iPad, without even jailbreaking your phone.

Super Mario Run on iOS will be very different from the classic PC versions because Mario will be on an “infinite run“, meaning he runs automatically.

“Super Mario Run” is an auto run platformer, similar to other games such as “Temple Run”. Mario can leap over obstacles, stomp on Koopas and Goombas and grab coins typical of any Super Mario game.

The game is one of Nintendo’s first forays into smartphone gaming. You will be able to customise your own Mushroom Kingdom with the coins you’ve earned. The site says you will need Rally Tickets to play this mode which can be acquired by clearing worlds or through bonus games in your kingdom. Iwata announced Super Mario in 3D for the Nintendo 3DS portable video game system.