Why is Pikmin a Niche Series?

It's probably marketing. Nintendo's had a problem with not trying when it comes to marketing, especially new or niche IPs. They do make a fair amount of new IP, but nobody actually knows about them and those franchises end up collecting dust. Splatoon shows that if they try, a new franchise can end up being a smash-hit, but that was a recent game so Ninty hasn't done it to that level with anything else so far, which is a shame since games like Xenoblade X get over looked due to marketing imcompetence.

Pikmin was a strange looking game on a strange looking console. The Gamecube didn't sell very well, and Nintendo did very little marketing for the game. The most effective marketing tactic they did was advertise Pikmin in Luigi's mansion and that already requires a person to own a Gamecube. Then Nintendo later releases the Wii U which is also under-preformed, with the promise that Pikmin 3 would be a game near the original lineup of games, but then it gets delayed. Not to mention all of those people who have a wii u and never played the previous games might have thought, "Well I better not play the third game before I play the other two," and then they either never actually go to play the first two and forget about it or play the first two and then go to the store to pick up Pikmin 3 and realize that you can't even buy the game anymore because the retail version is discontinued. There are lots of reasons, honestly. Its just a hidden gem.

Actually, I'm fine with Pikmin being as unpopular as it is. It's at that point of being large enough for Nintendo to care, yet small enough that Pikmin fans are fewer and therefore more meaningful to find. It's like living in a small town vs a metropolis; you care to talk to them more since they don't overwhelm you.

I don't think Niche is necessarily a BAD thing. Pikmin isn't pumped out every year or two, but they take their time with the games, and while Nintendo does this with a good chunk of their series, other developers don't. Nintendo still cares about Pikmin, it may have had a 9 year gap between 2 and 3 (probably due to the chnage from Wii to Wii U) but 4 has already been confirmed to be almost done.

Xenoblade is also a good example of a more niche Nintendo game that still does okay, and isn't churned out (partially because Monolithsoft likes to take around 5 eyars with these games) but is still developed constantly, and is very high quality. Also, on the topic of games like Xenoblade, niche has one major benefit, which is that because it isn't super popular, and the major fans of the series won't spoil the game, its easy to play niche games without being spoiled online, while something like MGSV, which was not very niche, was a long game that was definitely spoiled online. Pikmin may not be very plot focused, but if Pikmin 4 does have a good plot, it is unlikely that it will be spoiled everywhere.

Yeah, it does make me quite sad when I know some people haven't even heard of any of the Pikmin games, even some Nintendo fans. I think the hame getting taken off shelves way too early and marketing has definatly something to do with it. In fact, in the times of P3 and P2, I almost never saw a commercial or ad about the games. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I do not see any trailer ads or anything of the like until I completely miss the launch date and end up discovering it 3 months after XD(that happened to me with P3...). Hopefully there is plenty of notice this time around.