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Discussion The story of Pikmin 4: The game we don't deserve

Will Pikmin 4 release on Switch before this generation is over?

  • Yes

    Votes: 53 58.2%

  • No

    Votes: 38 41.8%
  • Total voters
    91
LukasManak22

LukasManak22

who the fuck is that
It all started in September 2015 when Miyamoto confirmed to Eurogamer that Pikmin 4 actually exists:
"It's actually very close to completion," Miyamoto said. "Pikmin teams are always working on the next one."
Click to expand...

This legendary quote is very often mentioned when talking about Pikmin 4. It's unclear if it was at that time planned as a Wii U game or was going to release for NX (Switch). Given the timing it was probably planned as a Wii U game (but more on that later).

Nintendo also confirmed Pikmin 4 existence to Eurogamer via separate statement:
"We can confirm that Pikmin 4 is in development but that is all we can confirm at present."
Click to expand...

Fast forward to E3 2016 in June, Miyamoto was asked about Pikmin 4, he answered:
"Yes, you are right, and we're working on [Pikmin 4]. So, you know, when we're in development we have to create a list of priorities and it has been hard to kind of fit that into that list, but we're hopefully starting to see that on the list now."
Click to expand...

Another year went by, we are now at E3 2017, Miyamoto is asked once again about Pikmin 4 by Eurogamer:
"I've been told not to share anything about this from PR," Miyamoto laughed, "but I can tell you it is progressing."
Click to expand...
At that time so many people thought Pikmin 4 was misinterpreted with Hey! Pikmin, which was announced in September 2016 and released in July 2017 but that's simply not true as we knew Pikmin 4 was in development.

And that is the latest official update that was given to this day. Almost 5 years since the latest statement by Miyamoto there is not any official info about what is happening with Pikmin 4, so here comes the rumors:


In February 2019, Emily said:

It was actually rebooted at some point during development. Which is why we haven't heard anything about it yet.
Click to expand...

And in October 2021, Emily gave us another point of view:
My advice: To avoid disappointment, people should stop expecting Pikmin 4 until Nintendo actually says something. The truth is, nobody knows if Pikmin 4 ever left the "experimental stages" of development.

Pikmin 4 is (or was) real because Nintendo of America put out an official PR statement to confirm the project exists. That PR statement kills any conspiracy theories. NOA almost never releases official statements to confirm rumors.

My personal theory on Pikmin 4: Miyamoto was either misinterpreted or mistranslated when he said development was nearly finished. That's why in later interviews, he said "it fell down the list of priorities". How does a project go from "nearly finished" to "fell down the list of priorities" to "Nintendo asked me to stop talking about Pikmin 4"?

Pikmin 3's development was rebooted multiple times across multiple platforms (DS, Wii, Wii U). It took almost 10 years for Pikmin 3 to release.
Pikmin 4 getting "rebooted" doesn't mean Pikmin 4 will release anytime soon.
Click to expand...

And this sums it up perfectly, I also believe that Miyamoto never actually ment to say it was almost completed, maybe he was talking about planning/concepts or something else. It was also rebooted and moved from dying Wii U to Switch (which does not feature 2 screen gameplay).

With Pikmin 3 Deluxe being released on the Switch and Pikmin Bloom on smartphones there is hoping that Nintendo comes one day with Pikmin 4 to surprise all of us, question is if it will be Switch release or something for other generation? Same goes with Star Fox which also had some prototypes on the Switch, but noone knows if they will turn into full game, I would say that same goes with Pikmin.
Perhaps in the EPD offices there is somewhere working prototype of a game called Pikmin 4. Maybe one day, remember good things come for those who wait.

I will leave you with this, from E3 2012:

 
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I don't think it's a coincidence that Yuji Kando has barely had any substantial credits since Pikmin 3. EPD has obviously been working on ideas that haven't coalesced into a full game. Kando was "Chief Director" for Pikmin 3 Deluxe, but almost all of the development was outsourced to Eighting.

nintendo.fandom.com

Yuji Kando

Yuji Kando is a programmer and planner at Nintendo EPD Production Group No. 10, mostly notorious for his work on the Pikmin series. Kando joined Nintendo in 1998 and worked mostly on the main AI and system programming on Pikmin and Pikmin 2, later taking on the role of main programmer on Big...
nintendo.fandom.com nintendo.fandom.com

The other Pikmin series director, Shigefumi Hino, went to work on Mario Maker after 3.

nintendo.fandom.com

Shigefumi Hino

Shigefumi Hino is a planner at Nintendo EPD Production Group No. 10, mostly notorious for his work on the Mario and Yoshi series (where he designed the character Yoshi itself), as well as for being one of the directors of the first three entries in the Pikmin series. Hino joined the company in...
nintendo.fandom.com nintendo.fandom.com
 
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I imagine one of the chief issues EPD has is in getting enough staff together to work on and fulfill all prototype ideas and potential projects. Obviously, not all of them will get greenlit, and it sounds like Pikmin 4 is another one of those Nintendo titles that undergoes a shift in direction; but if Miyamoto describes it as falling down the list of priorities, then that demonstrates that there's been that ongoing bottleneck at EPD in terms of making certain games.

It's not as if only 'small' franchises fall victim to that. A Link Between Worlds, for example, lacked development staff for a while because Nintendo needed to shift internal resources to Wii U launch titles. Hopefully Pikmin 4 is heading in a good direction and has a production team assigned or being staffed up.
 
Going by what I know about how Nintendo tends to work, and how Miyamoto tends to think, I always assumed that "almost completed" for Pikmin 4 meant "concept and direction locked, ready to staff up and build the game." Then it kept falling down the list of priorities, leaving no staff, while the hardware reality shifted underneath it, and it gotten taken back to zero.

Nintendo clearly sees more value in the characters than the games. Secret Pikmin are going to become Nintendo's "secret Mickeys," they're investing in things like Pikmin Bloom. I hope something catches, because the games are fun and the characters adorable. But talk about a game series that is in the opposite of a sweet spot. The visual style doesn't scale as well across hardware, it takes the non-gpu hardware very hard as well, and the most comfortable control scheme was the Wiis - all while being a very modest seller.
 
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N75 said:
I don't think it's a coincidence that Yuji Kando has barely had any substantial credits since Pikmin 3. EPD has obviously been working on ideas that haven't coalesced into a full game. Kando was "Chief Director" for Pikmin 3 Deluxe, but almost all of the development was outsourced to Eighting.

nintendo.fandom.com

Yuji Kando

Yuji Kando is a programmer and planner at Nintendo EPD Production Group No. 10, mostly notorious for his work on the Pikmin series. Kando joined Nintendo in 1998 and worked mostly on the main AI and system programming on Pikmin and Pikmin 2, later taking on the role of main programmer on Big...
nintendo.fandom.com nintendo.fandom.com

The other Pikmin series director, Shigefumi Hino, went to work on Mario after 3.

nintendo.fandom.com

Shigefumi Hino

Shigefumi Hino is a planner at Nintendo EPD Production Group No. 10, mostly notorious for his work on the Mario and Yoshi series (where he designed the character Yoshi itself), as well as for being one of the directors of the first three entries in the Pikmin series. Hino joined the company in...
nintendo.fandom.com nintendo.fandom.com
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Thank you for the insight you provide about Nintendo development.

but perhaps I am grateful because this specific insight gives me hope
 
Is Pikmin Bloom still alive? I have not heard anything after its release, and I don't know anyone playing it.
 
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It’s important to remember that the “not a priority” comment was made in 2016, back when the Switch was still in production and all hands were on getting the 2017 titles ready for launch. Everything besides Mario, Zelda, ARMS and Splatoon was an afterthought then. It doesn’t say much about the status of games today.
 
Pikmin 3 was among the very best wiiu games, and something both my wife abd myself enjoyed. So I really hope we’ll see a real Pikmin 4 one day.
 
It's mildly annoying how mistreated this series is. It gets new games for their bad systems; the GC and the Wii U. Only ports for the high selling consoles like The Wii and Switch.

It is just mishandling of a franchise at this point.
 
Hocot8 said:
It's mildly annoying how mistreated this series is. It gets new games for their bad systems; the GC and the Wii U. Only ports for the high selling consoles like The Wii and Switch.

It is just mishandling of a franchise at this point.
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I would say that it is an issue of timing more than being mistreated or mishandled.
 
0
I guess they failed, at least as far as we know and until now, to implement new concept idea. an open world Pikmin would be thrilling thou
 
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Catalyst said:
It’s important to remember that the “not a priority” comment was made in 2016, back when the Switch was still in production and all hands were on getting the 2017 titles ready for launch. Everything besides Mario, Zelda, ARMS and Splatoon was an afterthought then. It doesn’t say much about the status of games today.
Click to expand...
No, but the part where it hasn't launched, been revealed or even talked about in the six years since then does
 
0
It's unlikely, I thought for sure we'd see it after Pikmin 3 got ported but here we are with no word on it still.
 
I kind of feel like the traditional Pikmin gameplay structure peaked with 3, so I’m all for EPD taking all the time they need with the next entry.
 
totofogo said:
The Switch is the generation of dreams fulfilled. Much crazier things have happened so far on it, we are getting Pikmin 4 before it’s up.
Click to expand...

I agree with this sentiment. I mean, we got a new Luigi's Mansion, Pokemon Snap, 3D Kirby, and Metroid-fucking-dread.

As far as I know, Pikmin 3 Deluxe is currently the best selling Pikmin game. So, that's positive. And obviously, based on the quotes in the OP, Pikmin 4 is on their plate/radar in some fashion. It's not like a new Chibi Robo or F-Zero has had quotes like that

I think it'll happen eventually. This year's lineup is already looking pretty stacked, so maybe next year, or the year after that?

My brother had a cool idea for a new Pikmin. He suggested it be one giant world, rather than broken up. And maybe it goes back to the old format of a limited number of days -- so that you get, say, 50 days of oxygen to collect treasure, with no win/lose state, you simply get 50 days to explore at your leisure. And it's extremely difficult to see it all and do it all in one run (unless you are like a speed-runner). On the second or third run, you get a little further in certain directions and see bigger and wilder bosses. It would expand our concept of a score attack game by essentially make it a 8-10 hour 'score attack', but encouraging multiple runs. It would be fun if you could have co-op runs too.

So much they can do with this franchise.
 
A lot of you don’t understand that Pikmin 4 could absolutely be released this year. Just like Metroid Dread last year, reveal at E3 and release in October. Nintendo is full of surprises this year and it could happen. Plus, besides Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and the new Pokémon generation the schedule is empty.
 
Someone from Nintendo mentioned that they were so surprised by BotW's success that they put some games in development on pause to see what they could incorporate. My bet is Pikmin was on that list.
 
CherryGodzilla said:
A lot of you don’t understand that Pikmin 4 could absolutely be released this year. Just like Metroid Dread last year, reveal at E3 and release in October. Nintendo is full of surprises this year and it could happen. Plus, besides Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and the new Pokémon generation the schedule is empty.
Click to expand...
Don't forget Bayonetta 3 and Mario+Rabbids!
 
"It's actually very close to completion," Miyamoto said. "Pikmin teams are always working on the next one."

Pikmin barely has a team, let alone more than one. It all sounds like bad translations.

"Yes, you are right, and we're working on [Pikmin 4]. So, you know, when we're in development we have to create a list of priorities and it has been hard to kind of fit that into that list, but we're hopefully starting to see that on the list now."

Who and what is he saying "Yes, you are right" to? We don't even have the full interviews here.
 
Supreme Bum 01 said:
Someone from Nintendo mentioned that they were so surprised by BotW's success that they put some games in development on pause to see what they could incorporate. My bet is Pikmin was on that list.
Click to expand...
This is a distinct possibility. It's one of their highlighted brands, after all, so it makes sense they would want to similarly catapult its success. I only hope they don't lose its essence in the process (which, in this particular case, seems something that doesn't merit a ton of fret).

BooDestroyer said:
Who and what is he saying "Yes, you are right" to? We don't even have the full interviews here.
Click to expand...
He's saying that to Game Rant, presumably regarding previous statements regarding the game's status and the subsequent lack of news. ("Yes, you are right [that I'd previously indicated the game was coming along, which was then followed with a distinct lack of updates], and we're working on Pikmin 4.")

In any case, a new Pikmin will show up, and it should be grandiosity in minuscule.
I'm mostly surprised Switch hasn't received the previous games -- perhaps even with a bundling of Hey! Pikmin for good measure -- in the interim.
 
Supreme Overlord said:
This is a distinct possibility. It's one of their highlighted brands, after all, so it makes sense they would want to similarly catapult its success. I only hope they don't lose its essence in the process (which, in this particular case, seems something that doesn't merit a ton of fret).
Click to expand...
I wouldn't read too much into that.

Supreme Overlord said:
He's saying that to Game Rant, presumably regarding previous statements regarding the game's status and the subsequent lack of news. ("Yes, you are right [that I'd previously indicated the game was coming along, which was then followed with a distinct lack of updates], and we're working on Pikmin 4.")
Click to expand...
Again, this is the problem. There is a lot of incomplete and missing information in these "interviews".
 
Pikmin 4 has potential to be really great game, I just hope we will have announcement sooner than later.
 
0
BooDestroyer said:
I wouldn't read too much into that.
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What's being read into the compiled list here that you think is too much?
  • While there seems to be a lot of disagreement regarding the specifics of what this means -- or the series' merit to be included -- Pikmin was specifically selected as a "household name."
  • Nintendo is going to want to capitalize on and grow its recognizable brands.
  • Given the suggestion that some games were put on hold for this or similar purposes, it's a possibility Pikmin could be one of those, particularly as its concepts could lend themselves well to such experimentation, and especially given the development likely needed to be reworked anyway to remove any Wii U specific dependency.

I wouldn't suspect any of this to be particularly controversial, nor that it's dependent on reading too terribly much into that list. Could you specify where the issue lies?

BooDestroyer said:
Again, this is the problem. There is a lot of incomplete and missing information in these "interviews".
Click to expand...
That's because we're not looking at interviews here, but, rather, articles derived from interviews. These outlets seem to be fond of dissecting interviews for tiny little snippets they can use as basis for articles (see the recent "Platinum Games not Opposed to Selling" situation, though we did eventually get the interview from which that was derived), though that's assuming there was anything else in that interview worth seeing.

Regardless, yes, better practice might have been to include more direct context. However, the particular questions you highlight aren't, again, entirely ignored.

To whom:
GameRant said:
We were fortunate enough to have the chance to speak with Miyamoto during E3 2016, where we asked a medley of questions to the famed game creator.
Click to expand...
(Note: This doesn't indicate which specific individuals from GameRant spoke with Miyamoto here, but it addresses that it was this particular publication which obtained the information)

About what:
GameRant said:
After Shigeru Miyamoto confirmed that Pikmin 4 was "close to completion" during E3 2015, fans have been wondering just where and when it may end up. [...] Curious about the lack of information on the latest Pikmin, however, we couldn't help but inquire about the status of the project.
Click to expand...
Now, this doesn't specify exactly what "you are right" was referring to, but we can infer the general context, especially once we see that the provided quote is about how Nintendo hasn't been able to fit the game into its priorities (reasons for this could differ, but I'll try not to hypothesize too much here).

GameRant, however, continues on to hypothesize regarding what might have pushed Pikmin off the priority list, in case there was any question what this is about.

The general leadup seems to be
Not an Actual Quote said:
My guy! You said this game was almost done, but we haven't heard anything more about it at all. What gives?! Inquiring minds want to know!
Click to expand...

The answer?
Also Not an Actual Quote said:
Oh, about that. Um, yeah. So I said that, but the game really just hasn't been a priority. But it's probably about to be! Really! Mean it this time!
Click to expand...

Regardless, unless GameRant is just that bad at context, the overall takeaway from that particular exchange seems clear: Pikmin had not been on Nintendo list of priorities for whatever reason, but it should be making its way onto it [This second bit seems, considering precedent, perhaps best taken as a grain of salt].

Your confusion on this quote just seems somewhat overblown and not even entirely relevant to the meaning itself.
 
What we have to know is that this wasn’t an official company thing. It was just Miyamoto randomly running his mouth off, combined with arguably faulty reporting from a random western journalist who have a history of sucking at doing their job right. (Pokemon Stars, anyone?)

Pikmin 4 isn’t mentioned in any of Nintendo’s official business papers or any of that.

He even said that last time he was told not to talk about it again, and hasn’t since. Maybe there’s a reason for that.
 
BooDestroyer said:
What we have to know is that this wasn’t an official company thing. It was just Miyamoto randomly running his mouth off, combined with arguably faulty reporting from a random western journalist who have a history of sucking at doing their job right. (Pokemon Stars, anyone?)
Click to expand...
You're drawing parallels between two things that are hardly related here. There's a difference between reporting on an alleged leak and relaying information that was confirmed through official channels. I find it hilarious that you're passing judgment on how Tom Phillips does his job when you seem to be woefully ignorant about what said job entails.
 
BooDestroyer said:
combined with arguably faulty reporting from a random western journalist who have a history of sucking at doing their job right. (Pokemon Stars, anyone?)
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Am here to inform you that Tom Philips from Eurogamer was the first to report on July 2016 a very specific details about then Nintendo NX and a lot more things i would recall, yes these sources are not always correct as with another insiders but that's just how it goes. But this has nothing to do with Pikmin 4 as it was said previously, Nintendo confirmed via press release to them that Pikmin 4 exists.
 
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BooDestroyer said:
What we have to know is that this wasn’t an official company thing. It was just Miyamoto randomly running his mouth off, combined with arguably faulty reporting from a random western journalist who have a history of sucking at doing their job right. (Pokemon Stars, anyone?)

Pikmin 4 isn’t mentioned in any of Nintendo’s official business papers or any of that.

He even said that last time he was told not to talk about it again, and hasn’t since. Maybe there’s a reason for that.
Click to expand...
For someone who insists on the virtue of not reading into things, you do seem to have a propensity toward reading into a situation whilst not reading the plainly stated information related to it, and also making nonspecific statements into which people might read.

"We can confirm that Pikmin 4 is in development but that is all we can confirm at present."
-Nintendo, in a separate statement to Eurogamer

It happens to be the second quote up top.

In other words:
Raccoon said:
I am begging you to read the OP
Click to expand...
 
eyLe9N9.jpg
 
Raccoon said:
it's just the posts in the dogpile right above it
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It's less a dogpile, really, and more wildly flinging pikmin at a target; it's somehow cuter, and no actual dogs are harmed.
However, it does leave one half-expecting some adorable poster ghosts to drift sadly away.
 
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