Nintendo president Satoru Iwata this morning announced that the company is to officially and comprehensively enter the burgeoning smartphone market with its IP.

The news is momentous and unexpected - it follows years of Iwata-san having to pour cold water over calls for Nintendo to 'go mobile'; citing the strength of the company's dedicated console offerings as being the key to Nintendo's prosperity.

But the latest development is seemingly a culmination of years of studious planning on the best way to enter the smartphone market, which Iwata admits has become too big of an opportunity to ignore. The answer is a widespread partnership with Japanese firm DeNA, who has years of experience of being a major player in the social gaming platform world. It might be best-known in the west for its social gaming network Mobage. Under the agreement, Nintendo will take ownership of 10% of DeNA's shares, and DeNA will in return hold 1.24% of Nintendo's shares.

The intention of the partnership is twofold. Firstly, DeNA and Nintendo will "jointly develop and operate gaming applications for smart devices in global markets". Iwata has previously spoken of Nintendo's need to "aggressively utilise" its own IP, and said that the company did not intend to make any exceptions as to which of its franchises would be used. However, software that would be developed for smart devices would be tailor-made for the platform and not simply be ports of pre-existing Nintendo console games.

Iwata also acknowledged that for high-end success in the market, the key was a long-term commitment towards its games and applications through "ever-evolving services", rather than just having a high volume of regular new releases.

It leads onto the second, and more interesting aspect of the alliance. It, perhaps surprisingly, links back to the recent discontinuation of Club Nintendo. In its place will come a brand new "membership service", which will encompass 3DS, Wii U, smart devices, PCs, and Nintendo's next dedicated gaming console which has currently been assigned the codename 'NX'.

In the US, Nintendo's stock is up over twenty-five percent following the news.