See Mario. See Mario Run

For most of its history, Nintendo has kept a tight rein on its popular characters. Even as free smartphone games pulled casual players away from its living room consoles and portable DS hardware, mustachioed plumber Mario and the rest of Nintendo’s stable stayed exclusively on the company’s own systems. While years of declining sales failed to convince executives that this was the wrong strategy, Pokémon Go appears to have persuaded them.

At its peak shortly after its release in July, the monster-catching smartphone game, made by developer Niantic using characters Nintendo made famous, accumulated more than 40 million daily users in a couple of weeks and pushed Nintendo’s stock up 121 percent that month. In September, not surprisingly, Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto said the company mascot was coming to iOS. “We want as many people as possible to be able to enjoy playing as Mario,” he said.