Pikmin 3 Has No Online Multiplayer

Pikmin 3 on Wii U will not have online multiplayer, Shigeru Miyamoto has revealed, though it will feature local multiplayer.

“You have to be very careful that you don’t drop frames as you’re trying to sync up with other players over what could be a very great physical distance, over the internet,” Miyamoto told IGN.

“But in the situation of Pikmin, for example, since you would have lots of individual, small creatures, the Pikmin, whose every movement and location is going to be really important in the game, it would be very difficult to sync up over an internet connection.

“So what we’ve decided to do is focus on the single-player and local multiplayer aspects, which are really fun. But unfortunately, no online multiplayer for Pikmin 3. But the co-op local multiplayer is really fun.”

Pikmin 3 took center stage at Nintendo’s E3 conference this month. The game is probably the most graphically impressive title we’ve ever seen from the company, demonstrating impressive texture detail complete with lighting techniques that far surpassed those of the original Wii.

Pikmin 3 helped to demonstrate just how much the Nintendo Wii U GamePad can add to a title, with its handheld screen boasting a tactical mini-map and handy touch-screen controls.

Miyamoto explained that the processing power of the Wii U meant that Nintendo could add extra features previously not possible, such as adding cursors to objects in order to demonstrate where Pikmin would land. This was part of the reasoning that Pikmin 3 was deemed to be a Wii U exclusive.

“Fundamentally, I would say that the game didn’t change all that much,” said Miyamoto of the difference between Pikmin 3 on Wii and Pikmin 3 on Wii U.

“Rather, we saw the CPU power and HD resolution offered by the Wii U and simply thought that was the best platform possible for that game, allowing you to see the whole map at one time and things like that. Going back a little bit, I would have to say that we really debated what kind of game we should make Pikmin 3.

“Having played them,” he added, “you must know that Pikmin and Pikmin 2 themselves are very different games from each other. We had a bit of a discussion internally about which direction we should go for Pikmin 3. And at the same time we were also trying out different experiments on the DS and the 3DS and the Wii to see which platform the game would work best on.

“We had decided on Wii when the possibility of putting it on the Wii U became available, as we began to see what that framework was going to look like. At that time we definitely decided, okay, this is going to be much better on Wii U. Nothing huge changed in terms of the fundamental concept.”