Nintendo renames WARPSTAR as Nintendo Stars, expands IP beyond games

A $1.3 billion movie haul is now feeding a new Nintendo subsidiary. Nintendo Stars Inc. is the renamed WARPSTAR, a move that turns film-driven licensing, merchandise, and live events into a standing business function instead of an occasional sideline.

Nintendo said Aug. 27, 2025 that WARPSTAR, Inc. had been renamed Nintendo Stars Inc. and reorganized as a subsidiary responsible for ancillary use tied to films featuring Nintendo intellectual property. The company defines that work broadly: project development, licensing, live events, merchandise, and other ways to extend characters and worlds beyond the screen. Nintendo Stars is 100% owned by Nintendo, has capital stock of 10 million yen, is led by Representative Director and President Nobuto Kuroki, and is based at KANDA SQUARE in Tokyo.

The timing tells its own story. Nintendo and Illumination released The Super Mario Galaxy Movie on April 3, 2026 in the U.S. and many global markets, with a Japan release set for April 24, 2026. Nintendo also said the 2023 Super Mario Bros. Movie earned more than $1.3 billion worldwide, a result that makes the case for giving film and merchandising work a more formal home inside the company.

For Nintendo employees, especially in brand, business development, localization, consumer products, and partnership management, Nintendo Stars signals that cross-media work is becoming part of the company’s internal growth engine. The questions are different from a typical game launch. A character voice has to work in animation and on packaging. Story beats have to line up with merchandise cycles. Licensing calendars have to be coordinated with game production, live events, and global release timing. That means more pressure on teams that sit between creative development and commercial execution, and more opportunities for staff who can move between those worlds.

Nintendo said the new unit will continue the ancillary-use business of the Kirby franchise that WARPSTAR had handled since its founding on July 31, 2001, giving Nintendo Stars an existing transmedia and licensing base rather than a blank slate. That matters because it shows Nintendo is not just experimenting with film. It is building infrastructure around it.

The company’s broader reporting for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2025 still centers Nintendo on hardware, software, and core franchises, but the direction is clear. The live-action Legend of Zelda film, announced Nov. 8, 2023, will be produced by Shigeru Miyamoto and Avi Arad, directed by Wes Ball, co-financed by Nintendo and Sony Pictures with Nintendo covering more than half the budget, and distributed worldwide by Sony Pictures. Together, the Mario and Zelda projects show Nintendo pushing its characters into a wider entertainment system where screen, retail, and live experiences reinforce one another.