Pikmin 3 will not be making the Wii U’s launch

As the Wii U comes ever closer to materializing, either at local game store shelves or on doorsteps (assuming one has obtained the system via online options), Nintendo has been helping the hype machine along with the latest installment of Iwata Asks, in which the president of Nintendo goes behind the scenes of his company's products.

The latest installment is sure to delight tech-heads, as it features a rather hardcore examination of the Wii U's GamePad, which is a decent follow-up to the equally hardcore insider look at the console itself. Though one surprise revelation came when discussing the controller's ability to display small characters, which the hotly anticipated Pikmin 3 certainly does.

According to Nintendo's own annotation:

Pikmin: The first game in the Pikmin series, released for the Nintendo GameCube system in October 2001. Pikmin 3 is scheduled for release for the Wii U console in the spring of 2013.

Needless to say, this is a massive bummer to those who are picking up the console next month. Pikmin 3 is, without question, one of the most hotly anticipated releases for Nintendo's new system; it was near the top of the list of what everyone wanted when word first came that a new console was in the works. And its appearance at this past year's E3 conference was, in many people minds, the one and only true positive stand out.

It was assumed that Pikmin 3 would be part of the launch line-up, but Nintendo was fairly vague and non-committal about the matter as time went by. This revelation confirms what everyone has feared all along. As a result, some Nintendo diehards now have one less reason to move heaven and earth (or pay someone on eBay the extra $300) for a Wii U this holiday season.