Apple: Mario, Pokemon and iPhone 7

Update: The announcement of Super Mario Run sent Nintendo's share price soaring, rising almost 30% in the immediate aftermath of Apple's conference

Nintendo shares were trading at around $28 each when the market closed on September 6, but the company's stock hit a high of $36 the following day, as news of Mario's mobile debut spread across the world. That's almost as high as Nintendo's shares reached following the launch of Pokémon Go, when it eclipsed Sony in terms of market value.

However, that boost was something of an illusion, fuelled by a lack of understanding of Nintendo's role in Pokémon Go's development. Nintendo ultimately reminded its shareholders that the impact of that success on its bottom line would be limited, leading to an immediate slump in its share price.

Super Mario Run is different: a game created by some of Nintendo's most influential designers, featuring its most iconic character, and specifically tuned for smartphones. Speaking to The Verge, Shigeru Miyamoto said, “it's going to increase the population of people interested in coming to our platforms, which is of course is our main focus."

Given that Nintendo's next console, codenamed NX, is strongly rumoured to be based on a portable device, the success of Super Mario Run could be pivotal for the company's future plans.

Original Story: Apple may have been the victim of a few hardware leaks ahead of its conference today, but it did manage to keep some pretty major gaming news under wraps. Nintendo's Mario is coming to the iPhone in December with the specially developed Super Mario Run.

"We have created Super Mario Run to be perfect for playing on your iPhone," said Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto.

"Super Mario has evolved whenever he has encountered a new platform, and for the first time ever, players will be able to enjoy a full-fledged Super Mario game with just one hand, giving them the freedom to play while riding the subway or my favorite, eating a hamburger."

The game will be free to download, but will require a one-off purchase to unlock it in its entirety.

The company also announced that Pokemon GO is coming to the Apple Watch and dropped some stats, Pokemon GO has now been download over 500 million times, and players have now clocked up 4.6 billion km in steps chasing the pocket monsters.

Finally the company gave us a terrifyingly in depth look at the new iPhone 7 models, which lose a headphone jack but gain better cameras and increased performance.

"The A10 Fusion's CPU now has four cores, seamlessly integrating two high-performance cores that run up to two times faster than iPhone 6, and two high-efficiency cores that are capable of running at just one-fifth the power of the high-performance cores. Graphics performance is also more powerful, running up to three times faster than iPhone 6 at as little as half the power, enabling a new level of gaming and professional apps," said Apple.

Additional reporting by Matthew Handrahan.