November 30, 2004 - Nintendo has officially announced it will enter the movie business, according to the Nikkei Journal. The company plans to produce its own animated motion pictures, the first of which should hit theaters sometime in 2006. Reports of Nintendo jumping in on the movie business started in September, when former President Hiroshi Yamauchi told the press he was interested in moving the company toward motion pictures.

Nintendo will launch an in-house production group, building it from the ground up, to oversee the entire process. Everything from initial planning and pre-production to actual production will be handled internally. Nintendo delegated its previous efforts, such as the Pokemon movies, to external studios, so it will be interesting to see how things turn out.

Details on Nintendo's first picture remain practically non-existent. But it's safe bet it will center on chubby plumbers, baby dinosaurs or intergalactic bounty hunters. Having said that, Yamauchi has suggested Nintendo's first effort should be a visual interpretation of Japanese poetry. We'll have to wait and see.

We'll post details just as soon as they come in.