Shigeru Miyamoto accidentally trolled everyone during The Big Nintendo Direct

Tuesday’s Nintendo Direct was a much-hyped affair, with a whopping 40 minutes dedicated to the Japanese company’s portable console and its games. Most people kept their expectations a bit in check regarding this, as Nintendo said the event would mainly focus on products coming out this holiday season. But that still leaves room for surprises, and when Shigeru Miyamoto appears on screen, you get excited.

After all, Miyamoto is legendary. We tend to see him for big things, like announcing the coming animated Mario Movie the has a top-notch castor for things like that Super Nintendo World theme park. You know, announcements with mainstream appeal or questionable prestige projects.

Miyamoto has also been with the company long enough that he seems more or less able to do whatever he wants, although he still consults on many projects. Lately he’s focused on theme parks because he feels like he’s doing something new again, and it is only familiar enough with designing video games to be enthusiastic.

“Now my focus is on the need to continue gaining new experiences,” he said in an interview with The New Yorker. “That has always interested and inspired me about the medium: not to perfect the old, but to discover new things.”

But that doesn’t mean that Miyamoto is always doing something big and new. Having Miyamoto’s stature means he can also invest time in passion projects. That brings us to today’s big Nintendo Direct.

Continue reading: The Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild 2 is getting a completely different name, release date, and trailer

That brings us to today’s big Nintendo Direct. The thing is, even if you didn’t expect or expected any news about, say, a new Nintendo Switch model BotW 2, For whatever reason, for just a brief moment, it seemed like Miyamoto had something big to say. He began by noting that he had a few things to share, “including some news.” Immediately after that, Miyamoto started talking about Chris Pratt Mario film and the Super Nintendo World theme park. Except… all he said was that they were still working on the finishing touches for both projects.

Then when Miyamoto started talking about them Pikmin Mobile game that’s been out for a while, chat started losing its shit. We haven’t seen Miyamoto for a while and he wants to tell the world? What made it particularly funny is that there is no way Miyamoto is unaware of how this might be received. He introduced the segment by telling people that Pikmin Series is 20 years old, but the company is “still” working on it. franchise like zelda, Metroidand Super Mario are all older than that, but he would never remind people that Nintendo is still working on it, that would be absurd. Nintendo also routinely revives random franchises, albeit often in the context of series like smash bros but Pikmin isn’t exactly a popular series, and we already know that not many people are playing pikmin bloom, although a developer like Niantic is behind it.

The silver lining, however, is that Miyamoto actually had some breaking news to share: Pikmin 4 is coming in 2023. The fact that the game exists probably comes as no surprise to anyone, since Miyamoto sort of said it was “near completion.” seven years ago. Pikmin 3 was released in 2013; just a decade has passed. Salute to all the fans who have stuck it out for this long, although I’m afraid you’ll still be a little starved because the trailer we got today doesn’t really show much. Have you heard about it well Pikmin-like on Game Pass?

While this news will make some people very happy, throughout the Miyamoto segment as I watched on Twitch, the chat was in complete disbelief even as the new game was shown. Most people screamed and cursed the whole thing. And it kind of makes sense: thanks to the way The Direct was constructed, his performance almost felt like a fake out. Everyone started holding their breath to maybe hear Chris Pratt in an Italian accent, and instead they heard about a franchise that’s been on life support for years and was never that popular to begin with. “lol” as the kids say.

However, for those of us who have been following Nintendo for a long time, this is classic Miyamoto. The dude has always been a little unconventional, and that’s what has enabled him to create some of the most memorable games of all time. This and Pikmin was always close to the heart of the man. In 2013, Miyamoto said he has directed about 50 games and acted in over 100 in his lifetime. And of those games, many of which are industry-defining, Pikmin 3 was one of his best, he said. The numbers are probably much higher now, over a decade later, but I’m willing to bet he’d probably still rank Pikmin Pretty high if he keeps the series alive.