Plenty of other senior developers at Nintendo value storytelling and would love to integrate more story into Nintendo’s 1st-party lineup. With fresh faces rising in Nintendo and Miyamoto taking a more hands-off approach in recent years due to age, story may get a new heightened emphasis in the future. Shigeru Miyamoto has long insisted that story often bogs a video game down and isn’t a necessary component. This increase in visual animation could also coincide with more story in Nintendo’s 1st party games in general. With their own highly experienced animation studio right there in-house, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a jump up in cutscene quality and quantity in Nintendo games in the future. Still, it could also have been careful management of resources. This could be due to the gameplay-centric philosophy of these 1st party Nintendo games, a philosophy directed by Shigeru Miyamoto himself. Several Nintendo franchises like Pokémon and the core Mario games have had a sparse presence of cinematics. Perhaps Nintendo will get the most use out of their animation studio in their games.
I also expect bite-sized offerings like the Pikmin series to be produced through a paid subscription or the Nintendo online subscription, or even free like Pikmin itself was. It’s almost a given that Nintendo will capitalize on their new in-house animation studio to publish 1st party films themselves.
Nintendo’s presence in Hollywood is becoming more prominent in recent years due to live-action films such as Detective Pikachu and the upcoming Mario movie starring Chris Pratt. They have an extensive history going back to 2004, working on both game cinematics and films, making them a perfect get for Nintendo. You may have noticed that Dynamo has functioned primarily as a 3rd party animation studio, not a 1st party publisher. Some titles that stick out for me are Studio Ghibli’s Earwig and the Witch and the Final Fantasy XV Kingsglaive film. Yuri!!! on Ice (TV) : 3DCGI (eps 1-4), CG Modeling Yo-kai Watch: Sora Tobu Kujira to Double Sekai no Daibōken da Nyan! (movie) : VFX TsukiPro the Animation (TV) : 3DCG Production Tropical-Rouge! Precure (TV) : CG Production Cooperation
SD Gundam World Heroes (ONA) : CG Modeling Assistance (eps 8, 16) Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness (ONA) : Motion Capture Prologue of Blame! (OAV) : Associate Production Studio (The) Price of Smiles (TV) : 3DCGI (OP eps 1-12), Production One Piece: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island (movie 6) : Computer Graphics
Monster Strike Animation the New Series (ONA) : Animation Production (eps 25-37, 51-57) Maquia – When the Promised Flower Blooms (movie) : 3DCGI Late Night! The Genius Bakabon (TV) : 3DCGI (ED2 ep 4), Motion Capture (ED2 ep 4) Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV (movie) : CG Production Harlock: Space Pirate (movie) : Additional Production Giovanni’s Island (movie) : Motion Capture Studio Here’s a more comprehensive list of game cinematics Dynamo Pictures has helped produce.Īnd here’s a list of films and shows Dynamo has helped produce:ĪFTERLOST (TV) : 3DCGI (eps 1-12), Photography (eps 1-12)Īppleseed XIII (TV) : CG Animation Production (ep 1)ĪRP Backstage Pass (TV) : Animation Productionīack Arrow (TV) : CG Production (22 episodes, eps 1-15, 17-21, 23-24)ĭragon Ball Super: Super Hero (movie) : Production CooperationĮarwig and the Witch (special) : Production AssistanceĮnsemble Stars! (TV) : CG Animation (eps 21-22), CG Production Cooperation (ep 2)Įvangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance (movie) : Evangelion Modeling They also worked on numerous 3rd party video game cinematics such as Death Stranding, Monster Hunter, and NieR: Replicant. What Has the Animation Studio Worked On in the Past?ĭynamo was the studio behind the Pikmin animation series, which is on YouTube free of charge.
Still, in-game cinematics will most likely comprise a large part of the newly acquired animation studio, as we’ll get into. Nintendo will, no doubt, want to capitalize on having this in-house studio for Nintendo-branded movies and shows.
When most people think of visual animation, films and TV shows often come to mind. Still, with 100% of the outstanding shares being acquired, you can bet Nintendo has some animation projects already in pre-production. The deal doesn’t officially close until October 3rd this year. Dynamo Pictures will be renamed Nintendo Pictures following the acquisition on October 3rd and will “Focus on development of visual content utilizing Nintendo IP,” as Nintendo’s acquisition notification states. Nintendo has just acquired animation studio Dynamo Pictures to “strengthen the planning and production structure” of Nintendo IP visual content.