One of my biggest gripes about Nintendo this generation has been the complete lack of Pikmin. It’s the best IP they’ve introduced in the past decade and couldn’t have been more perfectly suited to the Wii and DS. Yet somehow, there hasn’t been a peep about a new version. There hasn’t been a peep… until now.

As reported on Kotaku;

At tonight’s E3 2008 Nintendo Developer Roundtable, Shigeru Miyamoto quickly and casually confirmed that a new Pikmin title is under development. His words? “We’re making Pikmin.” The long version of that answer, when asked if the team was planning on revisiting that particular franchise was far more verbose.

“We continue investigating all types of games,” Miyamoto responded. “When it’s time to announce such a title, I’ll announce it.” Then he did. “We’re making Pikmin.”

Nintendo is quickly proving to be an idiot savant at E3. Their moment in the spotlight was full of non-information, but as the show goes on more and more fantastically exciting tidbits keep slipping out.

I’m a little behind the times, so don’t spoil anything for me — but as I write this I’ve just finished watching the Nintendo press conference and I’m none too impressed. Sure GTA: Chinatown and WiiSports Resort have some potential, but overall I’d rank this one right up there with yesterday’s Microsoft show. Actually — it was even worse.

Why? Because as much as Microsoft didn’t have anything to offer, at least they didn’t let me down.

WiiMusic is something that was teased at E3 two years ago when the Wii debuted, and it looked like it could be fucking phenomenal. The idea of conducting and creating your own music and playing rhythm games with the wiimote sounded too good to be true. And from the mind of Miyamoto? How could it fail?

It’s important to remember that these are just my impressions from the press conference. As time goes on a lot could happen that could put egg on my face for this post. As it stands now though WiiMusic appears to be nothing more than air guitar for dozens of instruments with no real creativity, challenge, or preset goals in front of you. There’s no carrot on the stick.

And yes — they all looked like assholes demoing it. Miyamoto games always have great stories behind them that seem to start “One afternoon I was…” Pikmin for example, started “one afternoon I was working in my garden.” I can see how WiiMusic would go: “one afternoon I was playing Guitar Hero and thought about how much better it would be if there was no guitar and no point.”

Congratulations Miyamoto, you may not be infallible after all.