In a fairly well written story, Joseph Pereira explains how Nintendo is tackling the video game industry using new and innovative "non-violent" games.

For a company that historically has pinned it's success on the Mario, Zelda and Donkey Kong franchises, Pikmin is a big gamble. Bigger than most people realize, as Pikmin turns out to be Nintendo's costliest game ever to develop.

“Nintendo doesn’t believe it can grow the business based on past characters,” says Peter Main, executive vice president of marketing for Nintendo’s U.S. unit in Redmond, Wash. “We’ve got to come up with new ones.” Main declines to say exactly how much money Pikmin cost. “Let’s just say the game is a very big upfront investment and hence a gamble for us,” he says.

Go read the rest of the article.