Pikmin 3 Announced at E3

In a roundtable discussion today, Shigeru Miyamoto let slip that the Pikmin development team is hard at work on a new title for the Nintendo Wii. It is somewhat puzzling that he chose to make the announcement in a closed-door meeting instead of on stage during the company's underwhelming press briefing on tuesday, but we will take any scrap of news we can get for the Wii at this point.

The news of a Pikmin sequel will undoubtedly please a great deal of fans. The quirky series has garnered a lot of critical attention and a rabid following since it launched on the Gamecube in 2001. Pikmin is a top-down 3D strategy/puzzle game, in which players take the role of Captain Orima to lead a gang of pikmin, each with different attributes, in the quest for missing ship parts. While the first game was known for its cute graphics and a bouncy soundtrack, it also offered a pretty tough strategic challenge. Pikmin 2 introduced a second captain and some additional gameplay elements, but kept the core features of the first game.

Miyamoto did not offer any details about the setting, gameplay or control mechanics for the upcoming Pikmin 3. We will have to wait for an official announcement for more details.