The only interesting thing about Crytek is that they own Free Radical Games, besides the possibility of something like Timesplitters, I don't see much value in Crytek. And since they're tech nerds, Nintendo seems like a fairly odd partner for them to choose for their own developed games as well.

Note that I didn't say Nintendo bought Crytek itself. But here's more evidence:

http://www.ubergizmo.com/2012/07/crytek-currently-working-with-nintendo-crysis-3-for-the-wii-u-is-speculated/

"I can definitely say that we are working with Nintendo, and that’s about all I can say on that front." (note: I've removed the context - read the link to get it back).

Note that Crysis 3 was in development for Wii U... and then publisher Electronic Arts pulled Wii U support, so Crysis 3 for Wii U "had to die".

http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/crytek-says-that-its-nintendo-wii-u-version-of-crysis-3-had-to-die/

“We did have Crysis running on the Wii U,” Crytek’s outspoken CEO Cevat Yerli told Venture Beat, “We were very close to launching it. But there was a lack of business support between Nintendo and EA on that. Since we as a company couldn’t launch on the Wii U ourselves—we don’t have a publishing license—Crysis 3 on Wii U had to die.”

Do you think, with EA pulling their support, Nintendo would just go "well then, I guess we won't do anything with Crytek"?

It would make absolutely no sense at all for Crytek to part with CryEngine. The engine would also be practically useless to Nintendo, whose developers have never worked with it before and have no need for it.

Doesn't Crytek get pretty much all of their income from licensing their engine to other developers? Why on Earth would they sell their engine? Why on Earth would Nintendo buy it? Making a deal with Crytek -- not buying them or buying anything from them -- would make a bit more sense, but I can't imagine what kind of deal Nintendo would make, and since they instead made an 'acquisition' I'm ruling out a simple licensing deal.

To answer your question OP ...

FWIW, if you look at the date gap between of what's been reported you can clearly see a 1 year delay so it's highly doubtful that their related at all ...

And what's more is that people have pointed out that a deal =/= aquisition ... 

Those games getting delayed have NOTHING at all to do with Nintendo either so myth busted. Homefront got delayed because Deep Silver couldn't keep up. The same goes for Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age ...

Acquiring is not necessarily the same thing as buying.

I agree that a simple "we will use your engine for some of our games" license deal wouldn't be described as "acquired". But what if it's more than that? What if it's a deal that states that Nintendo will publish all Crytek games on both Nintendo platforms and PC (requiring that a Nintendo platform must be present for each game), plus the money itself, and in return, Nintendo will use CryEngine for their games and encourage their partners to also license and use that engine? Nintendo acquires the CryEngine tech (not in the sense of owning it, but in the sense of an ongoing license), Crytek gets more opportunity to make the games they want to make while also having a steady stream of income.

Think of a broader license deal than just a deal for CryEngine itself. Given Crytek's financial woes (that, if my hypothesis is right, were dealt with due to this deal), it would benefit them to have a large swathe of developers using their engine. It would also benefit them to have an ongoing publisher deal that basically says that they can make the games they want, so long as the publisher's system is supported by them. For Crytek, that would be quite a boon. It wouldn't stop them from making games for other systems (it's not like EA will stop working with Crytek on Crysis games, for instance), but it would enable them the freedom to make any game, just so long as a Nintendo platform is supported (and it's not like Crytek are against Nintendo support, as I pointed out they had Crysis 3 running on Wii U before EA pulled the plug). For Nintendo, not only would they get a top-end engine with extensive support, but they would also ensure an ongoing stream of games and the support of a third party that has otherwise been absent on Nintendo systems.

While highly unlikely, it WOULD be interesting for Nintendo to acquire a western "bigger is better in terms of graphics" type of studio.

Though, if they did acquire them and along with it the license to CryEngine, THAT would be interesting. CryEngine is actually a rather good engine, and would make it easier for Nintendo to strike up 3rd party exclusives by also handing said 3rd party the graphics engine tools to work with right off the bat, reducing development costs assuming Nintendo and Crytek work up a Wii U SDK update with CryEngine 3 (or maybe 4 by that time).

All hypothetical, of course, lol

This was my thought.  The folks at crytek don't seem to know what optimization even means, or even could possibly mean, they whined about 8 gigs for the ps4 and xb1, but you could give them a tb of memory and their games would still have framerate issues.

Whether this means more games for the WiiU and the next system or an outright adquisition, this is good news for Nintendo. If it's the latter, just imagine all of the butthurt from the internet. XD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=1vHRMeRszw4

Nintendo is the last company i'd think of acquiring crytek.