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Iwata has relented and given the green light for Nintendo games on smartphones – and the markets are delighted.

At the time of writing the platform holder’s share price is up by over 25 per cent so far today, trading at $19.95. It’s the highest price the company has traded at since January 10th 2014. There’s still some way to go, however, until it reaches the heady heights of 2007, when in November the company’s share price reached a staggering $76.87.

Nintendo this morning announced both new games hardware and, more importantly, a partnership with DeNA to bring a number of new titles to smartphone based on Nintendo’s rich library of IP. It has promised not to port existing titles.

Boss Satoru Iwata has repeatedly denied that the company would bring its characters to smartphones, with the charismatic exec famously saying in January last year that it’s not as simple as enabling Mario to move to smartphones”.

The indications are, however, that there has been increasing unrest within the company, with questions being asked of both Iwata’s health following surgery on a growth in his bile duct and the struggling state of the company’s finances after it last year posted its third successive annual loss and slashed its predicted Wii U sales by over two thirds.

Iwata has remained dogged, however, vowing not to resign – despite demands for him to do so from some company shareholders and repeated calls from analysts to free Nintendo’s rick IP from the shackles of its struggling hardware.