I reduced my issue to this minimal repro (react-native 0.5.0). I have a png of about 1MB, with smaller images I have no issues.
var image = require('image!name');
works properly, while
var image = require('image!'+'name');
returns "Requiring unknown module...".
My use case would be to have jpg images, and of course 'name' will be a variable different for each image. Will jpg be supported anytime soon? Thanks! E.