You can start playing Super Mario Run right now
It's here!
Super Mario Run, Nintendo's first ever wholly owned game for smartphones and Mario's first appearance on non-Nintendo devices, has finally launched on the iPhone.
Sorry Android users, this is only for iOS, with the much-anticipated arrival first teased in September at the unveiling of Apple's iPhone 7.
Hot on the heels of the Pokemon Go craze (the second most Googled thing of the year, it was really that huge).
You can get it on the App Store right here. It will set you back £7.99, but that's not much to pay for a whole lot of nostalgia, let's be honest.
The game, familiar to any kid of the 80s or 90s with a Game Boy or SNES (ok, maybe the Wii for a later generation) has been especially designed for the iPhone, naturally.
That means one handed play (great for the commute while you're desperately grasping on to a rail with the other, but only if oyu have Wi-Fi on the train) using taps as you aim to collect those classic golden coins.
There are three modes:
World Tour – rescue Princess Peach
Toad Rally – challenge mode to play friends
Kingdom Builder – build your kingdom after collecting gold coins and toads
All your favourite familiar characters are there – Luigi, Princess Peach, Yoshi, Toad and Toadette.
Perfect timing for the festive period.
[poll id="57"]
While 2016 was clearly the year of Pokemon Go when it comes to tech crazes (it was short-lived hoverboards in 2015, of course), Nintendo had only a small amount of involvement in it.
It said the craze would have "little impact on earnings" because it only has around a third of a stake in it, but that didn't stop investors going a bit nuts.
"Shares in Nintendo rose for the same reason as the Tulip mania of Holland – popular delusions and the madness of crowds," said ETX Capital's Neil Wilson at the time.
This time its different. Super Mario is a fully Nintendo developed game and it's longer history is likely to attract more people looking for a bit of nostalgia.
Even top Apple exec Phil Schiller can't hold back on his excitement.
https://twitter.com/pschiller/status/809465724234149888