Nintendo To Acquire CG Studio Dynamo Pictures
Nintendo has thrown their (red) hat into the acquisition game
Announced via official investor documentation, Nintendo is set to acquire 100% of a Japanese visual content company known as Dynamo Pictures, Inc. Upon becoming a wholly owned subsidiary, the company will change its name to ‘Nintendo Pictures Co., Ltd.’ and will “focus on development of visual content utilizing Nintendo IP.”
The document states that the purpose of the acquisition is to “strengthen the planning and production structure of visual content in the Nintendo group.” The deal is set to finalize in October 2022 and is stated to have minimal impact on Nintendo’s fiscal year.
Dynamo Pictures is a CG animation studio that’s been working in the field for 30 years. They work in a wide range of industries, including movies, TV shows, games, and VR content for theme parks. In the gaming space, they’ve done motion capture work for titles such as Death Stranding, Monster Hunter World, and NieR Replicant, and done CG for Resident Evil spinoff VR titles.
Nintendo’s exact intention with this company, and its suite of tools, is difficult to discern. Ultimately, terms such as ‘visual content’ are pretty catch-all. They could be referring to the visual content in their games, or a whole new arm of their company that will produce traditional non-interactive visual content, like TV shows or movies.
Back in September of 2021, in a Nintendo Direct, the company revealed the English voice-acting cast for the upcoming Mario movie. And there were some big names in there, who probably weren’t cheap to bring on, such as Chris Pratt, Seth Rogen, and Jack Black. Over the past few decades, Nintendo hadn’t dabbled much in creating adaptations with their iconic IP, however, this upcoming movie may be a sign that they are changing their perspective.
The Mario movie, set to release during the Holiday Season of 2022, is a collaboration with Illumination, the animation studio most known for the Minions. It’s clear that, for a project of such importance, Nintendo needed a studio with a lot of experience in the animated movie industry. Having a CG studio in-house would give them the option of doing smaller-scale projects by themselves if they so desired. The naming convention of ‘Nintendo Pictures’ does resemble that of TV and movie studios, as often the word ‘pictures’ references ‘motion pictures’, another term for film.
It’s worth noting that the document says the acquisition will have only “a minor effect” on Nintendo’s fiscal year. This could mean that the company’s addition will have a minimal financial effect in general, or that whatever Nintendo Pictures will work on, will only bear fruit past March 2023, which is when Nintendo’s fiscal year ends.
Jose Garcia
Jose is an experienced video game analyst and reviewer, who earned his chops producing long-form video essays about the industry, those getting him his first bit of online recognition. His thousands of hours into Smash and Pokemon earn him the well-deserved title of “Nintendo Nerd” (he likes to say expert), but at heart, he, like many of us, is someone who appreciates the art of games in all its forms.
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