A portion of an MTV interview with brand manager Dan Robinson...

MTV Multiplayer: Are you concerned that third-party “hardcore” games haven’t sold as well as “Mario” or “Zelda”?

Robinson: Part of that would be the marketing spending. If it’s a Nintendo game, they put a lot of money behind it. But also, I think fans have got a lot of faith in titles from first-party, and being a third-party, it’s been important for us to get Nintendo on our side and get them really behind the game. They’ve seen it, and they think it’s great because it’s something different. With the original game, fans saw it and they thought they knew what was coming, but then they saw it and thought, “Hang on, this is something different.” It got viewed as “Fable” mixed with “Pikmin.” That was how it was seen, which is no bad thing from our point of view! So I think you’re right, in that first-party titles tend to be more successful, but they tend to get more support. They get on TV, that helps. But I think this title’s got a chance! It’s a good game, it’s something different, and I think if we do it right, it will attract the right sort of audience that will buy it.

I mean, people like it because it’s like “Pikmin” and they’ve got the different colors, different abilities and you can send them off to do different things. But it’s also totally different. The minions are evil. They kill things and set fire to things; you don’t find “Pikmin” doing that!

Full interview here