It's been a while since I've played my Pikmin, but I do recall enjoying the first game more than the second simply because of the challenge. Apparently Shigeru Miyamoto agrees, because in a recent interview with GamesMaster he states he wants to return to his roots and make Pikmin 3 more like Pikmin 1. What exactly does he mean by that? Well, he wants to reintroduce some player "stress" and go from there.

"Our main aim in Pikmin 2 was to get rid of any stress as much as possible, so that it would be very user-friendly. Well, I myself couldn't agree with that direction perfectly. That kind of nature of Pikmin 1 was exactly what I wanted to reproduce and I was actually intentionally doing so, so that Pikmin 1 could be a strategic game."

This seems to be a major trend in Miyamoto's various franchises -- the constant battle between of adding/removing mechanics and nuance vs. making a game user friendly. When Miyamoto thinks about making a new Zelda game, does he look back on the franchise and pick one game in particular for inspiration from?

Of course, it's not as easy as saying what a game should be like, especially when the team is largely made up of Pikmin 2 developers. It probably doesn't hurt that he's Shigeru Miyamoto, though:

"When we started creating Pikmin 3 I gathered the main members who worked on Pikmin 2 and talked about how I thought it was important to get back to the basics of Pikmin 1. Or I should say that half of my job at that time wasn't just to talk, but rather to persuade them to understand what I intended to do and to agree to my idea."

I'm sure at this point in his career Miyamoto doesn't have to do much persuading so much as just properly convey exactly what he wants. After all, who wants to make Miyamoto angry? 

Pikmin 3 is planned for release in Spring 2013 exclusively for the Wii U. Expect the franchise to get back to its... roots.