Nintendo Skipped PAX West, Yet Pikmin Bloom Took Over the Floor

I just rolled back into Seattle after my first PAX West since 2019, and I have to say, the vibe was…different. The expo hall felt quieter, the aisles packed with merch stalls, and the usual roar of big‑publisher launches was noticeably missing.

Big names like Bandai Namco, Sega, NIS and Konami still brought flashy booths, but the three industry giants—Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo—were essentially ghosts. Sony and Xbox had no presence at all, and Nintendo? Well, they were nowhere in the main hall, despite the fact that their U.S. headquarters is practically next door.

That’s what made the next thing I saw so oddly striking: Pikmin. Not the classic Switch titles, but the mobile game Pikmin Bloom, popping up like confetti everywhere.

Pikmin Bloom, originally launched in 2021 by Niantic and handed over to Scopely in 2025, is a location‑based stroll‑tracker. You walk, collect steps, grow a squad of tiny Pikmin, and sprinkle flowers across a map. The whole point? To deck your critters out with a ridiculous assortment of hats—think tiny top hats, berets, even sausage caps.

Back when the game first dropped, I was one of the many who downloaded it, eager to turn my commute into a garden‑filled adventure. But once I stopped commuting, the steps dried up, the app felt pointless, and I tossed it aside. I assumed, like most people, I’d forget about it forever—another Pokémon GO offshoot doomed to fade.

Enter PAX West 2026. Scopely went full‑tilt on promotion: massive billboards plastered across Seattle’s bus shelters, lightrail stations, even the Westlake station that sits just a block from the convention center. The ads were everywhere—walls, floors, stairs—like someone feared you’d miss them if they weren’t on every surface.

Inside the convention hall, there was a modest Pikmin Bloom booth handing out paper crowns shaped like the game’s iconic heads. Attendees proudly stuck them on their heads, and soon you couldn’t walk a few feet without spotting a sea of tiny, jaunty hats among the crowd.

What’s puzzling is the timing. The game is five years old, and while it’s quietly raking in more revenue each year, it’s not exactly the headline‑grabbing title you’d expect Nintendo to parade around. There was even a Oktoberfest‑themed in‑game event with pretzel‑shaped hats, but that felt like any other seasonal update—not a massive marketing push.

My best guess? Nintendo is warming up for a new Pikmin announcement and wanted the brand to linger in everyone’s mind. A Nintendo Direct is slated for tomorrow, after all. Whether that’s a new Switch title, a Switch‑Lite bundle, or something else entirely, the Pikmin blitz definitely set the stage.

Honestly, the hype worked on me. I re‑installed Pikmin Bloom on my phone, and the game feels fresher than when I left it in 2023. New quests, cuter hats, and a nicer UI make the walk‑about experience genuinely enjoyable again.

Bottom line: Nintendo proved you don’t need a booth to dominate a gaming convention. A splash of clever advertising and a handful of paper crowns were enough to make Pikmin Bloom the most visible property at PAX West 2026.