Thanks for the question, Anon. My initial thoughts about the whole recent Pikmin thing in the Nintendo Direct was just feeling tired of Miyamoto’s “eccentricity”. At this point I’m glad he’s been increasingly less prominent at Nintendo. Anyway, enough about that weirdo.

Pikmin 3 was a fantastic game, and the Pikmin themselves are as you say adorable. I’ll support making video content or animations about any Nintendo property, and they’re a good choice. Although I haven’t seen the videos myself, the trailers impressed me and the video package is on my wishlist, to perhaps get with Christmas credit. $5 (or $6.50 I think it was here in Australia) might seem a bit much for a short piece of non-interactive entertainment, but I think it’s still an experimental area for Nintendo. As a unique offering, it seems a not unreasonable price. But if they start churning these out every month, possibly for other series as well, $5 (or $6.50) a pop for an increasing library of videos will start to get untenable.

On that front, it seems that for now this isn’t a new business market for them, and in fact may be limited to just this for the foreseeable future. I think the only reason it got made was because of a Miyamoto whim, and his man-child tendencies cannot be denied at Nintendo. So I wouldn’t worry about them gouging money out of us in this way consistently. But as a sweet little expansion to the Pikmin universe, it’s great. Definitely going for the HD version over the 3D version though; what’s the point of watching videos by yourself on that tiny screen? No offence meant.