Well looks like Nintendo has bought another studio but not one of the gaming variety this time around, but a CG animation studio, Dynamo Pictures based out of Tokyo which is set to be rebranded to “Nintendo Pictures Co., Ltd.” when the acquisition closes in October.
The acquisition will be separate from Nintendo Studios which is currently producing the upcoming animated Super Mario movie which is being animated by Minions studio, Illumination and is set to release next year. Nintendo Pictures will “focus on the development of visual content utilizing Nintendo IP”, the deal documentation states. Dynamo Pictures has a past relationship with the Mario company and has collaborated with the Mario company before, the most recent being the PIKMIN Short Movies.
“Dynamo Pictures is a company that plans and produces visual content. Nintendo has decided to acquire 100 percent of the outstanding shares (excluding treasury shares) of Dynamo Pictures and make it a wholly owned subsidiary to strengthen the planning and production structure of visual content in the Nintendo group,” Nintendo wrote in a statement.
Dynamo Studios was founded in 2011 and is better known for its work in animation, films, television, video games, and motion capture. Some of the familiar projects it’s helped work on include Evangelion: 2.0., Yuri!!! On Ice, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, Final Fantasy XIII-2, Death Stranding, Monster Hunter World, Nier Replicant, Persona 5, Dark Souls III, and Metroid: Other M.
The multi-media expansion follows a string of recent video game adaptions into movies and TV shows including the Sonic the Hedgehog films, Uncharted, The Last of Us on HBO. So this might be their way of going in that direction as I don’t see Dynamo Pictures producing just CG commercials or short YouTube films celebrating the company’s games, there has to be more of a move to create their own adaptation with its very in-house studio to possibly work on a Legend of Zelda series for example.
