It's the start of September, and Nintendo has woken up.
After a fairly quiet August, we got a barrage of news to kick off the month. Let's start with something that was big for a moment before quickly becoming overshadowed later in the day.
It's been a while since we've gotten a free update for a previously released Switch game featuring enhancements for Switch 2. The most recent example was Donkey Kong Country Returns HD, which got a surprise update back in January.
Since then, we've gotten Switch 2 Editions of Mario Wonder and three Xenoblade games, and Pokemon Champions got some Switch 2 enhancements at its release, but in terms of free enhancements for older games, DKC Returns was the most recent example. Until now, that is.
In the span of a day, Nintendo randomly decided to put out two of these updates back to back, the first of which being for Pikmin 3 Deluxe.
This is a curious choice for a Switch 2 enhancement, considering the entire mainline Pikmin series is on Switch, yet they only updated 3. Pikmin 4, the brand new Pikmin game on Switch, got a free update last year, but it was not a Switch 2 enhancement update. The fact that they updated 3 Deluxe before doing any enhancements for 4 tells me that a full-on Switch 2 Edition of Pikmin 4 could certainly be on the way, and we could perhaps see it as soon as next week should the rumblings of a hypothetical Direct be true.
So, what is actually included in this update? Well, not much, to be honest.
The update brings Pikmin 3 Deluxe to Version 1.2.0, so not a major version number, which is reflected by the update's contents. For Switch 2 players, it allows for sharper image quality on the Switch 2's display and high-resolution TVs, and adds support for GameShare in the Bingo Battle mode, both locally and via GameChat. As essentially the modern version of DS Download Play, it's always nice to see more games add support for GameShare.
For Switch 1 players, the update... uh... changes the version number on the title screen, I guess? That is, by definition, a change.
Yeah, no, the patch notes literally say "No changes have been made" if you're playing on Switch 1. There's not even any mention of bug fixes. Curiously, the patch notes also note that these changes have not been applied to the demo version, which remains at the prior Version 1.1.3. Odd, but alright.
So, as you can clearly see, this is a much smaller in scope update that only serves to bump the game's resolution on Switch 2 and add support for GameShare. It's unfortunate that there's no support for mouse controls, which seems like a perfect fit for Pikmin. Perhaps that's being saved for a Switch 2 Edition of Pikmin 4.
Interestingly, this isn't the first time the game has been updated for Switch 2, as a pair of updates released in June 2025 that fixed a particular issue impacting the game when played on Switch 2, as well as making several unclarified adjustments for the game on Switch 2. Though, given those update's version numbers of 1.1.2 and 1.1.3 versus the slightly more substantial jump to 1.2.0, those were more so hotfixes as opposed to the full enhancements we have with this latest update.
If you'd like, you can check out the official patch notes here, but you're not missing much that I haven't already explained.
