Topic: Pikmin 4 In Development, Mario Galaxy Looking At New Hardware

[Shaymin]

But Pikmin is "very close to completion".

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/41107/pikmin-4-in-development-mario-galaxy-looking-at-new-hardware

A new Pikmin game is in development and according to Nintendo, it's "very close to completion".

Shigeru Miyamoto confirmed the title was in development in a July interview with Eurogamer, and the company confirmed the development with Nintendo in a follow up interview. No release date or platform information is available for the title at this time.

In the same interview, Miyamoto also mentioned that a new Super Mario Galaxy game is in the planning stages, but they are looking for hardware advances in order to revisit it:

"On the other hand, me and [Yoshiaki] Koizumi-san, director of Galaxy, are always looking to challenge Galaxy and do another 3D action title," Miyamoto continued. "However we can't make so many games at once in parallel."But as the hardware technology gets better and advances, I think there will be a lot of opportunity for both options."

[broodwars]

Meh. Pikmin 3 didn't interest me enough to spend more than a few hours on it, and Pikmin 2 didn't do much for me, either. It's too soon for another Pikmin game, and I'm done giving that franchise chances. If Nintendo's going to throw money away on a game that's going to bomb anyway, I'd rather they threw that money at a new Metroid or (heaven forbid) a new IP.

[rlse9]

Awesome news.  I have thoroughly enjoyed Pikmin 3, and really liked both of the first two games as well.  I'm a little surprised to hear that a new one is coming so soon after how long it took to release 3.  It's obviously not for NX if it's coming as soon as it sounds, so I wonder if this is to help fill out the early 2016 release schedule on Wii U or if they're finally going to make a handheld version.  I'd guess Wii U since it'd be easy enough to make a new game using the Pikmin 3 assets but DS/3DS always seemed like it would work well for the series.

[buttle]

Oooooh, that is VERY good news.

[TOPHATANT123]

He's been talking about the next game in the Pikmin franchise for a while now, and I assumed it was just a hypothetical game, not something that's actually in development. I assume this is a quick sequel using Pikmin 3 assets to fill out the lineup, EAD 4 can't have only been working on Mario Maker all this time.

[Khushrenada]

A new Pikmin game is in development and according to Nintendo, it's "very close to completion".

Wow! That's crazy news today. The Pikmin series is starting to have one of the weirdest release schedules of all Nintendo franchises. *Thinks about the releases of other Nintendo franchises* Actually, I guess this is pretty normal for Nintendo.

Still, from the time it took Pikmin 3 to come out and with the sales it had, I'm amazed that Pikmin 4 is near completion. As Rise9 pointed out, it's got to be because they've already got a lot of assets they can reuse from Pikmin 3 to make development cheaper and have a faster turnaround time. With the time it took to develop Pikmin 3 and Nintendo's statements of not wanting to make a sequel unless they have a new idea for a franchise, I wonder what the reason they'll have for making this is and what the gameplay is to be like for this game compared to Pikmin 3.

[azeke]

Still, from the time it took Pikmin 3 to come out and with the sales it had, I'm amazed that Pikmin 4 is near completion.

Pikmin 3 is something like half a million in Japan alone.

[sudoshuff]

This is great to hear.  Pikmin 3 made me fall in love with the franchise in a way that 1 and 2 did not.  Simply using the same assets with a new story would be enough for me to buy it, but I can also see a couple of obvious avenues for improvement.  Foremost, the story mode should have a two-player co-op this time.  I suppose there could also be some clever online integration.

[NeoStar9X]

Great news!!! I loved Pikmin 3 and would love to get another entry in the series.

[ThePerm]

Waiting for hardware advances for Mario Galaxy...

i'd hope they can reach the fidelity this single dude is doing.

They're waiting for Metroid too right? If they can have Metroid and Zelda ready for launch and have Mario soon after, that would be pretty sweet.

[Enner]

A new, possibly Wii U game? Can we gloat now :p
While the words you hint strongly at a Wii U release, I'll be cautious until Nintendo says so.


This casts the touchscreen-controls patch and the recent, post-release demo in different light. Since Pikmin 3 was developed as a Wii game first, it didn't take advantage of the Wii U GamePad as much as some would've liked. Perhaps the development team found something with experimenting on the Pikmin 3 touchscreen controls on the GamePad.

If Nintendo's going to throw money away on a game that's going to bomb anyway, I'd rather they threw that money at a new Metroid or (heaven forbid) a new IP.

While VGchartz is unreliable, it does say that Pikmin 3 sold about 930k globally. Not sure if that's a bomb for Nintendo's coffers, though it is for a lot of other big companies. I'll grant you that Metroid Prime 3 and Metroid: Other M both sold 1.79m and 1.33m, respectively. As for new IP, hey, we got Code Name: STEAM and Splatoon this year. They can't press their luck all the time (though maybe they should).

[broodwars]

Bear in mind that once upon a time, Nintendo said that Zelda Wii U was very close to completion. I'll believe that Pikmin 4 is actually releasing soon and on Wii U when I'm holding the case in my hands.

[ejamer]

Pikmin 3 is a really good game. If they chose to re-use the assets and churn out a sequel pretty quickly, I'd be totally ok with that.

[TOPHATANT123]

Bear in mind that once upon a time, Nintendo said that Zelda Wii U was very close to completion. I'll believe that Pikmin 4 is actually releasing soon and on Wii U when I'm holding the case in my hands.

When was this? I can't find anything on it, do you mean Skyward Sword?

[broodwars]

Bear in mind that once upon a time, Nintendo said that Zelda Wii U was very close to completion. I'll believe that Pikmin 4 is actually releasing soon and on Wii U when I'm holding the case in my hands.

When was this? I can't find anything on it, do you mean Skyward Sword?

I was referring to Miyamoto & Aunuma's appearance at last year's Video Game Awards w/ Zelda as well as Nintendo's many, many, MANY assurances that Zelda Wii U was coming out this year...until it wasn't and suddenly Nintendo wouldn't talk about it or show it again. Point is, game developers say a lot of things to try to garner false hype, and Nintendo's well-known for making empty promises when it comes to release windows.

[Soren]

Point is, game developers say a lot of things to try to garner false hype, and Nintendo's well-known for making empty promises when it comes to release windows.

Yeah, gotta love that Pikmin hype, on an interview that done on July and embargoed until today. One game is likely being made using plenty of assets from the previous entry in the series. The other is being made from scratch.

[Ian Sane]

Well since Pikmin 3 is one of the few titles that I really want to get a Wii U for it would be nice if another Pikmin made it to the Wii U and gave me an extra title to justify the console purchase.  Yeah, they probably can make a derivative sequel pretty easy using the same engine.  I don't care for sequels made with that mentality but Pikmin hasn't been overexposed yet so it's not a big deal.

Assuming this does end up on the Wii U then Pikmin gets two games on the Gamecube, skips a generation, and then two on the Wii U.  Is there some unofficial rule here that Pikmin is to only get new releases on underperforming Nintendo consoles?  At least they're making Pikmin 4 and didn't come to some idiotic conclusion that Pikmin isn't marketable based on sales of a game on a failed platform.  The jury should still be out on almost every Wii U game in terms of their true sales potential as they have all been restricted by the low console sales.

[Enner]

I was referring to Miyamoto & Aunuma's appearance at last year's Video Game Awards w/ Zelda as well as Nintendo's many, many, MANY assurances that Zelda Wii U was coming out this year...until it wasn't and suddenly Nintendo wouldn't talk about it or show it again. Point is, game developers say a lot of things to try to garner false hype, and Nintendo's well-known for making empty promises when it comes to release windows.

Skipping my rumbling thoughts of semantics, honesty, the fluid nature of video game development, and uncontrollable interpretations by enthusiasts...

... so we can be glib once it comes out! :p

[Mythtendo]

Might want to fix the article. It wasn't a July interview, Europe uses the day/month/year format, so even though it says it was published on 07/09/2015, that means it was published September 7, 2015.

I still haven't finished Pikmin 3, don't know why since I loved Pikmin and Pikmin 2.

[Luigi Dude]

At least they're making Pikmin 4 and didn't come to some idiotic conclusion that Pikmin isn't marketable based on sales of a game on a failed platform.  The jury should still be out on almost every Wii U game in terms of their true sales potential as they have all been restricted by the low console sales.

Pikmin 3 didn't bomb though.  Unlike the rest of the industry, Nintendo is actually good at keeping their budgets for games in check.  Pikmin 3's budget wasn't the highest thing in the world and we know just from NPD and Japanese sales it managed over 500k from just physical sales at full price alone.  If you add in whatever digital and Europe, as well as the fact the game had DLC for people to buy which a good amount of the fans probably did, the game probably did decent.

Not every game needs to sell Mario and Pokemon level numbers to be considered a success to Nintendo.  Yeah many of their Wii U games aren't selling what they did on previous systems but Nintendo is very realistic when it comes to what they spend on game development.  There's a reason Nintendo isn't shutting down studio's because a game didn't sell 5 million just to break even.

[Shaymin]

Might want to fix the article. It wasn't a July interview, Europe uses the day/month/year format, so even though it says it was published on 07/09/2015, that means it was published September 7, 2015.

I quoted the source on that one: "Speaking during an interview held back in July, Nintendo's top designer revealed that work on a fourth major Pikmin game was well underway."

[NWR_insanolord]

First Picross 3D 2, and now this. Pretty good stretch for game announcements as far as I'm concerned.

[ThePerm]

lol is see words well underway and close to completion and i wonder what is lost in translation. We're all Nintendog's trying to get a piece of meat.

[Mythtendo]

Might want to fix the article. It wasn't a July interview, Europe uses the day/month/year format, so even though it says it was published on 07/09/2015, that means it was published September 7, 2015.

I quoted the source on that one: "Speaking during an interview held back in July, Nintendo's top designer revealed that work on a fourth major Pikmin game was well underway."

Hmm. So either Eurogamer got it wrong, or they waited at least 6 weeks to report on the interview

[Enner]

Hmm. So either Eurogamer got it wrong, or they waited at least 6 weeks to report on the interview

Nintendo is not a stranger to weird embargoes and non-disclosure agreements.

Also, you can tell this was an delayed report of an interview because Eurogamer would've (gently) pressed for any comment on Iwata's passing if this was a recent interview.