Nintendo takes over animation studio – likely to help with future movies

Pikmin red yellow blue — The last time Nintendo and Dynamo Pictures worked together was in 2014 for three Pikmin shorts (Photo: Nintendo)

Dynamo pictures coming soon Nintendo Pictures and is expected to work exclusively on the company’s future film and animation projects.

Unlike Microsoft and Sony, Nintendo doesn’t seem very eager to include other game studios to include in its collective. The biggest buyout in recent history was Next level gameswho already had a very close working relationship with Nintendo.

Now the next acquisition of the company is not even a game developer, but an animation studio called Dynamo Pictures.

It won’t be called that for much longer, though, as Nintendo plans to rename it to Nintendo Pictures once the acquisition closes on October 3.

As for why Nintendo wants it to become a subsidiary of the company, it’s to “strengthen the visual content planning and production structure in the Nintendo group.”

While this may apply to animated cutscenes for future games, “visual content” can also be a broad term for animated movies and TV shows.

Nintendo has publicly shared the announcement of the acquisition and you can read it herebut it doesn’t reveal much more.

The most surprising thing about the acquisition is that Dynamo Pictures has only worked with Nintendo a few times before. It made the 2014 Pikmin shorts and, according to MobyGamesassisted with the cutscenes for Metroid: Other M.

A quick exploration through her website shows that it collaborates with several other studios. Some examples include at least one of Capcom’s 3D animated Resident Evil movies, as well as motion capture work for Atlus’ Persona 5 and Square Enix’s Kidney Replicant†

Now that it’s become a wholly owned subsidiary, Nintendo has effectively cut it off from other companies, so the likes of Square Enix and Capcom will have to look elsewhere.

It’s been clear for some time now that Nintendo has big ambitions to expand its franchises into media other than games, which is a complete 180 from its past stance following the 1993 live-action Super Mario Bros. movie.

The first major animated movie, another attempt at Super Mario, won’t be out until next year and still doesn’t have a trailer. It is supervised by Despicable Me and Minions studio Illumination and has a star-studded voice cast, featuring Chris Pratt as the controversial choice for Mario himself.

Nintendo has talked about make more animations in the past, and even recently set up your own business specifically dealing with future films.

No other projects outside of the Mario movie have been officially announced, but a report of Giant freaking robot claims there are plans for a Donkey Kong spin-off movie starring Seth Rogen (who will voice the character in the Mario movie).