We’re finally in the middle of a proper Pikmin revival, and fans are taking the opportunity to reminisce about how Nintendo left a native PC port of the first game on the original disc.
Years ago, fans discovered that Nintendo included – probably accidentally – a Windows executable file on the original 2001 GameCube disc that lets you run the game on PC. It seems to be a developer build of the game, as it comes with a ton of debugging tools and no shortage of graphical glitches. It’ll even run on modern PCs with a bit of detective work to find the correct DLL files, but it’s not exactly an ideal way to play the game – after all, it doesn’t let you save.
You can get more details on this PC executable on The Cutting Room Floor, and it is an absolutely fascinating bit of Nintendo history. Games are obviously developed on PCs, but while Nintendo licensed a handful of its properties for computer games back in ’80s and ’90s, it officially published a grand total of zero internally-developed PC titles in its lifetime.
With the Pikmin remasters upon us, series fans are taking the time to remember this historical oddity, and one tweet on the subject has gone moderately viral – prompting responses ranging from “WHAT?!?” to “This is actually crazy!”
For anyone wondering…. The GC SDK came with “emulator” libraries that were essentially native versions of all the DolphinOS components…. And the Pikmin team left their x86 compiled binary in the game by accident! https://t.co/CYnuWrI5FIJune 28, 2023
The Pikmin series seemed destined for the same historical dustbin where Nintendo keeps the likes of F-Zero and Golden Sun, but between the new remasters, the mobile title Pikmin Bloom, and the impending release of Pikmin 4, it looks like the little plant guys are here to stay.
A bit of hands-on time with Pikmin 4 has one GamesRadar+ writer ready to become a fan of the whole series.