Nintendo has huge plans with their recently formed subsidiary, Nintendo Pictures.
Speaking to investors, this is what Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa said about their plans:
“Nintendo Pictures Co., Ltd., which we made a subsidiary in 2022, is working on various initiatives in the visual content business, and not just feature-length films.
As with game development, our basic policy with visual content is to make announcements when we are satisfied that we have created something fun.
In other words, as the creative teams go through the process of trial and error, we will make further announcements when we have something new to share.”
Longtime Nintendo veteran Shigeru Miyamoto often spoke in interviews about wanting to branch out from video games, and as we know, he finally got to do that with The Super Mario Bros. Movie. However, hardcore fans will remember when he made the Pikmin animation shorts, as well as the promotional video for Star Fox Zero, called The Battle Begins.
Those short movies were made in-house at Nintendo, and it was clear that their brevity was so that the animators involved could quickly finish them and move on to making games. It can be argued that Miyamoto’s eye for storytelling was there since Donkey Kong. While Miyamoto’s games weren’t known for complex narratives, for years we have seen his efficient storytelling style in cutscenes for the various video games he was directly involved in, as well as those that he may have worked on as producer, or just shared some feedback for.
As Nintendo Fellow, Miyamoto has been at the forefront of Nintendo’s forays outside of video games, and we do expect him to be part of the work at Nintendo Pictures as well. Even as Nintendo works with unlikely partner Sony Pictures on a The Legend of Zelda movie, Furukawa has now let the word out that they are working on more than movies for the future.
The potential is big for Nintendo to expand the appeal of a lot of their IP by bringing them to TV or streaming as shows, or maybe even content for platforms like YouTube. For example, it’s easy to see Pikmin shorts go on to become a preschool staple, at YouTube Kids, or Disney Junior.
There are also opportunities to reintroduce many of those properties they have that are fond favorites among gamers, but they couldn’t consistently make new games for because of the issues with profitability. Shows or other content for Star Fox, Metroid, and F-Zero could also benefit hugely from this.
But we can’t ignore that it’s likely that Nintendo is thinking about bringing their biggest IP, Mario, back into a show too. This could be another project with Illumination Pictures. But alternately, they could spinoff a different version of Mario, such as Paper Mario or Mario & Luigi, into a completely different show with its own storylines.
Obviously the possibilities are endless, but Nintendo is likely trying to ground all that potential into what films and shows they could best make right now, when they are starting to spread their wings beyond video games.
