The Pikmin franchise is easily one of the more “curious” entries in the Nintendo library. The series was brought to life thanks partly to legend Shigeru Miyamoto and had two entries on the Nintendo Gamecube. It was so popular in certain circles that its main character, Captain Olimar, was put into Super Smash Bros. It eventually got a third game on the Wii U. Heck, it even got a smaller game on the Nintendo 3DS! But despite that, the franchise has never been what you would call a “blockbuster success.” That is, not until the fourth game came out on the Switch.
While we still haven’t heard any official numbers from Nintendo, it’s clear that Pikmin 4 has been a huge success. Just in Japan, a country that rarely picked up the game when it released its first three main entries, the title has been the #1 physical title sold there for five weeks straight and has sold over 750,000 copies. So when you add in other regions like the US and the UK, it’s clearly over a million units sold, if not over two million. That puts it well within the “successful” range and the range of all the other Switch games that have sold well over the console’s lifespan.
There were many reasons why the game was speculated to do better than the last three console titles. Key among them was the adjustments to the gameplay to make it “less complex” and “more inviting” to new players. Additionally, there were new elements that would make the game even more robust, like the Dandori battles.
That brings us to an interview with Takashi Tezuka, who served as a producer on the newest entry. Wired asked him if a new entry would arrive sooner than the one we just got. To which Tezuka replied:
“I think that would be best as well. We’ll try not to let everyone wait.”
The wait between the 3rd and 4th console entries was ten years, so that was quite a wait. If you recall, Shigeru Miyamoto himself said that the game was “done” back in 2016, but that wasn’t the case. However, with the apparent success of the new title, it makes sense that Nintendo would jump on things sooner rather than later.
Plus, they have a new console they’ll likely release next year, and having a new Pikmin game ready in the wings for its first or second year wouldn’t be a bad thing.
