Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 0 comments

A pair of Pikmin 3DS themes are coming out in Europe this Friday, Nintendo has confirmed.

The company tweeted a few minutes ago:

We already knew about the theme on the left thanks to a Miiverse interview with Shigeru Miyamoto. The one on the right is a complete surprise!

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 5 Comments

Shigeru Miyamoto was interviewed over on the Pikmin Miiverse community yesterday and talked quite a bit about the Pikmin Short Movies. While there weren’t any major revelations, he did share some interesting things – including news about a Pikmin 3DS theme.

Here are some excerpts:

On Pikmin being individuals…

Actually, the Pikmin in the game move in a way that is every bit as individual as those in the movies, it’s just that you can’t control them directly, only lead them. And because they’re so small, and there are so many of them, it’s hard to tell what each individual is doing. That is why I wanted to create these Short Movies that focused only on the Pikmin.

On conveying the concept of “affinity” with the shorts…

…the concept of “affinity” was something I really wanted to communicate, so I’m very happy to hear you say that. When I was working on the games, I found this feeling of affinity to build up quite naturally, and even in my normal life I was thinking, “I wonder what would happen if there were Pikmin here?” or “I wonder what this would look like from a Pikmin’s point of view?” Those little ideas became doodles, and that was the beginning of the PIKMIN Short Movies.

On what’s easier: game or movie production…

Game production, I think! But it’s not really that game production is easier, it’s more that movies and games are so fundamentally different that the areas where you must focus your energy are also completely different. For that reason, the easier process to me is the one I’m the most used to, which is game production.

To put it simply, the difference is that with animations and other such visual media the consumer is a viewer, whereas in games the consumer is a player, so they are created from two different mindsets. Being able to make games is no guarantee you’d be any good at making animations, and vice versa. This is another thing the experience of making these movies has taught me!

On the sound for movies versus a video game…

This probably overlaps with what I just said, but games are created for people to play, and if a game is outside the range of the player’s expectations, it creates a kind of wall or a distance between them and the game world. In a film, every frame must be constructed to communicate something to the viewers, and to achieve this purpose, scenes are sometimes intentionally exaggerated or even made absurd.

I worked together with the sound directors from the Pikmin games to create the sound. For the background music and so on, we have a library from the three Pikmin games, so I listened to all of that for the first time in a long time.

On how you can hear sounds when pressing the A button while watching the shorts on 3DS…

Of course I used what I considered to be the right sound for the job in the movies, but I thought I’d add a tiny bit of interactivity here for the viewer!

This hidden feature is only available on the Nintendo 3DS version, but then the Wii U version has those beautiful big-screen visuals, so I don’t think you’re losing out, whichever one you pick!

Final words from Miyamoto…

Now I feel like I’m writing my will or something! Anyway… For a long time I’ve been of the opinion that if a game world is in sync with your personal experiences, it will be more fun to play. By seeing the movies and playing the game like you have, MariChan, I think you can get a deeper level of enjoyment out of the game. For that reason, we’ve created a demo of Pikmin 3! The game now has new control options that make it easier to play, so please enjoy the movies and the game together!

View the gallery below for storyboards, opening art, and a look at the bulletin board that hangs on the wall in Olimar’s room in the first movie.

You’ll also find a photo of a new Pikmin 3DS theme. Miyamoto confirmed that the theme will be releasing next week.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 3 Comments

Following the most recent Nintendo Direct, an official website opened for the Pikmin Short Movies. You can feel free to access the page right here.

The site contains an overview of the Pikmin Short Movies, a trailer, and even a message from Miyamoto. Miyamoto’s message doesn’t contain anything mind-blowing, but it’s a neat little thing to see. View the message in full below.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 23 Comments

Based on recent comments from Shigeru Miyamoto, it sounds like we can look forward to another Pikmin game in the future.

Last week, Miyamoto mentioned the Pikmin shorts and Pikmin 3 demo, which just released yesterday. He said that these types of campaigns “will lay the groundwork for the next iteration of ‘Pikmin’ in the future.”

Miyamoto stated:

If I am allowed to do a little bit of PR here, we released a series of short films called “Pikmin Short Movies” on October 25 at the Tokyo International Film Festival. If you have not seen it yet, I hope you will check out the information on the Internet. The short film is only about 20 minutes, but this is our very first animated movie that uses “Pikmin” as its theme. We’re planning to make this 3D movie available on Nintendo 3DS and make the HD version of the movie available on Wii U in the near future. At the same time, we have also prepared a demo version of “Pikmin 3” so anyone who hasn’t played Pikmin can experience its unique joy. Continually launching campaigns after the release of software will lay the groundwork for the next iteration of “Pikmin” in the future. And needless to say, we want it to be one of the motivations for potential consumers to purchase Wii U. We are making a variety of different efforts.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Videos | 0 comments

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Wii U | 0 comments

The Pikmin Short Movies download size comes in at 2,600 blocks on 3DS. On Wii U, the download is 1184.7MB.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Videos | 2 Comments

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS eShop, News, Wii U eShop | 0 comments

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS eShop, News, Wii U eShop | 16 Comments

We already knew that the Pikmin shorts would be available on 3DS. It has since been confirmed that the distribution will be on the eShop, though there won’t be an option to download the video. Additionally, the Pikmin shorts will be available on Wii U as well.

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Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Wii U | 2 Comments

Famitsu posted a report about the Pikmin short films and Shigeru Miyamoto’s appearance at the Tokyo International Film Festival. Read on below for a summary of what was shared, courtesy of NeoGAF’s “StreetsAhead”.

-The films were screened in 3D at the event.
-The films are ‘Late-Night Juice’ (2 mins), ‘The Treasure Inside The Bottle’ (8 mins), and ‘The Rough Day’ (13 mins).
-Miyamoto showed off some of the storyboards he made in Flipnote 3D at the event.
-He joked that with the time he put in making these short films he probably could have made about 2 games.
-He was reticent to use the Rock Pikmin idea at first, but with the mechanic involing breaking glass/crystal in the game came to the conclusion that rocks breaking it would be easiest to convey.
-Rock (and probably Flying) Pikmin don’t appear in the films since they were made at the same time as Pikmin 3 and they hadn’t finalized everything about those types yet.
-He mentioned that he’s working on the Star Fox game for Wii U.
-They’d like to release the Pikmin 3 demo on Wii U and the films on the 3DS at the same time.

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