Can Pikmin become a well-known IP?

Nintendo has some of the best selling series every Gen even when their systems fail to sell very well. They have many commonly known IP's that sell a lot (Mario, DK, Pokemon, Animal Crossing, Smash Bros, Zelda) and others that sell less. (Kirby, Yoshi) Pikmin falls into the category of series that aren't well known and don't sell a lot along with Metroid, StarFox, F-Zero, and Fire Emblem.

The thing is, I feel that out of all of Nintendo's series, Pikmin is one of the ones that Nintendo really tries to push and do everything they can with quality-wise. It just seems to be as polished and detailed as a 3D Mario, or Zelda. It is also a series that Miyamoto had come up with.

Yet, Pikmin gets neglected as a main Nintendo series. Can Pikmin 3 bring the sales to a new high? Can Pikmin eventually get to Zelda sales?

I say that Pikmin 3 looks to be what Miyamoto had Envisioned all along and if they market it well, Pikmin 3 could easily surpass the sales of the 1st 2 games. It might take a while due to Wii U's low sales thus far but I think it'll have longevity and be one of the best games on Wii U when all is said and done which will heighten sales.

What do you guys think?

no, pikmin will always be a niche title, i'm not sure if till even reach 1m

judging from previous entries

I would have to disagree. Pikmin 1 & 2 both sold over 1 Million on the GC and Pikmin 2 was even pretty hard to find. It might be a niche series (for now) but it does have a loyal following.

it should do over 500K in Japan alone easy, possibly 1 Million if Wii U sales get better.

Pikmin 3, definitely not, at least not on the Wii U. Maybe somewhere down the line.

Zelda type sales? No

I think Pikmin 3 will reach the same number as his predecessors. Might reach 2 million with a big marketing push, which I don't see Nintendo doing.

It's only looking to sell about 100k week 1 in Japan according to COMG pre-orders

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I see no reason to expect this game to sell better then Pikmin 1 or 2. It could do fairly well in North America, so because of strong sales outside of Japan, I could see the game breaking 2 million, but it's always going to be one of Nintendo's good, yet niche franchises. No different from Metroid or Fire Emblem.

Still, it could push hardware sales quite a bit. Had I not had Wii games to beat, Pikmin 3 would look like the first real reason to buy a WiiU.

It depends more on console sales. Hopefully it can. It's managed over a million sales for the previous games.

The only Pikmin that really had a big push was Pikmin 1.

I don't think Nintendo will market Pikmin 3 nearly enough.

Actually, I'm afraid of the contrary.

I expect Pikmin 3 to sell 1.2m, same as Pikmin 2.