How did this franchise survive 3 financial flops before finally hitting it big? not that i'm complaining, i love the cute enemies this game has.

It's safe to ignore this bait. Op is retarded pikmin 1 2 and 3 all sold copies in the millions between the 4 mainline games total copies sold goes 4>3>1>2. There was never any financial issues pikmin has always had an audience.

>>715095997
it sold less than Fire Emblem pre-awakening

>>715095728 (OP)
Financial flop was never confirmed. Nintendo always hides that type of information but most have the assumption based on their employee count and various interviews that development costs are much smaller than your average AAA development.

>>715095728 (OP)
>Miyamoto's baby
>Probably stupidly cheap to produce (2 especially is 90% reused assets)

>>715095728 (OP)
It being miyamoto’s brain child was largely in part why they kept it around. Compare it to F-Zero, Star Fox, and Punch-Out which haven’t gotten a new game in over a decade whilst arguably being more popular

>>715097891
Reused assets wasn't so much of a money saver back in the day, the reused engine however was a major time and money saver.

Miyamoto's baby so it gets made to keep him happy.

>>715097926
Eh, bit far fetched to lump in Starfox with Punch Out, F-Zero, and the rest that are treated unfairly, Starfox has had like what, 7 second-chances? Starfox is more popular as a furry circlejerk than as an actual franchise.

>>715095728 (OP)
Japan loves it, Nintendo makes it in-house, and it's Miyamoto's baby

>>715095728 (OP)
Miyamoto favoritism. And he is a godsend for doing so even if 4 is ass.

>>715097926
>>715099725
Pikmin's made in-house
F-Zero hasn't been made in-house since X
Punch-Out on Wii was done by Next Level Games
Star Fox is just fucked

>>715095728 (OP)
should have stopped after 2 and REALLY stopped after 3

>>715096546
The first two Pikmin titles had Platinum Sales releases. It has always been smaller 7 digit sales franchise.

>>715098030
This is why Gamecube had 4 Mario Parties btw.

>>715101558
yet all 4 of them vastly differed from each other in quality

>>715101558
God I miss that development philosophy. It's why we were able to get several games of a series we like within a single console gen. I really thought that was what was going to happen for astral chain when it came out early into the switch life cycle. All they had to do was recycle the engine and build up some new assets, instead it will probably be less cost-effective too do a sequel now that it would need a new engine and updated assets.

>>715095728 (OP)
Pikmin is Miyamoto's Nepo Baby.

>>715101825
I recall having a lot of fun in Mario party 5. The extra mode with the car battling was really fun and I like the idea that the paper Mario star characters were hosts, made it more memorable.

>>715101558
6 was my favorite of the Gamecube MP games, but all of them had something likable. I feel like 4 was probably the weakest, but it's been a long time. Games got too expensive to make so we're likely never gonna see something like this happen ever again.

>>715095728 (OP)
Pikmin was always a pushed franchise, pic related is from 2001, and it was already treated on the same level as Mario, Zelda, DK and Pokemon.

>>715101825
6 > 5 > 7 > 4
4 had some of the best mini games, but the actual boards sucked in terms of presentation and slowness. The whole mega and mini mushroom gimmick was underwhelming too.

>>715095728 (OP)
Not sure I'd call them a flop, just a "smaller" selling series probably still in the millions range
I'm glad for Miyamoto or whoever keeps it alive though. It's a very weird series but it's really appealing when you actually play it.

>>715095728 (OP)
Surprised they never tried a Pikmin DS game.

>>715102170
4 has nice mini-games but abhorrent boards.

>>715104023
They prototyped one for the 3DS but it wasn't working so they had Sonic's creator shit out Hey Pikmin.

>>715104412
As someone who has played every MP except for top 100 and 10, 4 is the hardest to go back to and play because of just how horrendous most of the boards are.

>>715095728 (OP)
Ai no Uta was a big hit in Japan.

>>715095728 (OP)
it was KINO