A person dressed as the Nintendo character Mario waves at a pop-up Nintendo venue in Madison Square Park, March 3, 2017 in New York City.

Nintendo shares surged on Friday after Tencent won approval to start selling the Japanese gaming giant's Switch console in China.

At one point, shares were posting a gain of more than 16%, but they were trading at around 14% higher by the end of the day in Tokyo.

Regulators in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong approved the Nintendo Switch and the game "New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe" to be released in China.

Nintendo shares responded by hitting their highest level since an intra-day high on October 18, 2018.

Investors have been asking for a long time when Nintendo will enter the world's largest gaming market and the tie-up with Tencent will be a welcome step, according to Daniel Ahmad, an analyst at Niko Partners. But, he warned, the market should not get too excited because Nintendo and Tencent will still need approval from more regulators in the country.

"This is still very early in the process. Therefore, we expect there to be some time before the console releases in China," Ahmad said in a note on Thursday.

"Nintendo and Tencent will also need to submit each game for approval in China and ensure the games comply with content regulations. This too is a lengthy process and means that it will take some time before Nintendo can build up a large library of official games in China," he added.