It's not that Capcom hates the franchise, Inafune's departure didn't kill it, and there's no malicious attempt at burying it. Capcom is simply working on a reboot as we speak.
Now, I know this sounds odd, but let me tell you a little story: long ago, there was a once-great series that had been forgotten by the masses, its legions of fans reduced to a small group of hardcore enthusiasts and no one else. Everybody thought the series was done and that the best we'd ever see come out of it would be a few rehashes. That a gaming icon had gone out with a whimper.
Got all that? Now, guess which series I'm talking about. I'll wait.
Now that you've guessed the series, let me confirm it for you: I'm indeed talking about Street Fighter. It had been close to a decade since the last Street Fighter installment when SFIV hit the shelves. Today, thanks to a lot of hard work on Capcom's part and revolutionizing their tried and true fighting game formula with modern updates, the whole fighting game genre is experiencing a renaissance. This is exactly what's happening to Megaman right now, as a franchise: the games don't sell. He's a has-been. Board 8 loves him, but let's be realistic, Board 8 is made up of old farts. Megaman 9 and 10 were critically acclaimed, but they didn't innovate a single thing, so, novelty aside, they didn't exactly sell, and other games in the franchise have flopped miserably (remember say, ZX Advent cracking the Top 10 Games Sold chart? Me neither). The franchise has stagnated, so right now, Capcom is looking for a way to update it to modern standards. We probably won't see anything next year, and likely not the year after that either: creating an absolute classic that revives a franchise and attracts new fans without alienating the old ones ain't easy, but I think their experience with SF has taught the Capcom people a lot about how to deal with the Blue Bomber's situation. I'm placing my bets on news about a new Megaman game leaking out in two to three years, at most. Don't lose hope, Megaman fans. You're not forgotten and you're not hated. It'll take a while, but Megaman will make a triumphant return.
None of that explains the constant taunting with things like MML3 and Mega Man's lack of appearance in MvC3. Sure, you can make the argument that they don't want Legends 3 since that would be stupid in conjunction with the reboot-but the months of taunting still makes no sense. And choosing to not include him yet include Zero makes even less sense in the context of a reboot. Sure, maybe Zero isn't part of the new series and they don't care about him being in it thusly (and same with Tron). But then that still leaves you with a lack of explanation for why they do all the constant teasing/taunting with the Mega Man poster in the background, the Mega Man alt costume, etc.
Also makes me wonder why they would go ahead with launching an ongoing Mega Man comic series that follows the old continuity if they were planning to reboot.
Anyway wasn't Mega Man Powered Up an attempt to reboot the series, which failed miserably? I mean it was a great game, but nobody bought it. Oh, and they recently rereleased it, so more people can not buy it than ever.
And I think MM9 did sell pretty darn well. They don't release sales figures for downloadable games but it was received extremely well by the press and the public, and obviously did well enough to get MM10 pushed out fairly quickly, and other Mega Man projects greenlit (though they were later canceled).
From: YetAnothrShadow | #005 Or they just don't see Megaman in their future releases of money grabbers and money grabbers only.
But then why haven't they made a Mega Man 11 yet? 9 and 10 by all accounts were fairly successful, and I can't imagine they cost that much to make. Especially now that the groundwork for building a classic Mega Man on modern platforms has been laid; how hard can it be to just iterate?
I swear, you could probably write a script that would generate at least 90% of the game automatically.
From: Azp2k32 | #002 None of that explains the constant taunting with things like MML3 and Mega Man's lack of appearance in MvC3. Sure, you can make the argument that they don't want Legends 3 since that would be stupid in conjunction with the reboot-but the months of taunting still makes no sense. And choosing to not include him yet include Zero makes even less sense in the context of a reboot. Sure, maybe Zero isn't part of the new series and they don't care about him being in it thusly (and same with Tron). But then that still leaves you with a lack of explanation for why they do all the constant teasing/taunting with the Mega Man poster in the background, the Mega Man alt costume, etc.
There is no taunting. If you're reworking the brand, publishing even more stuff is counterproductive, yes? I believe that seeing things like the Heroes and Heralds cards as taunting is being overly negative - after all, a cameo indicates that the brand is being acknowledged. Think it about it this way: Back when MvC3 released, Seth Killian said Ghost Rider and Iron Fist weren't included because they were "just punchy dudes". Flash-forward to UMvC3 and there they are. What changed? Simple, Capcom had enough time to think about a clever and satisfactory implementation. I believe the same thing is happening with Megaman, the people at Capcom are thinking hard about how to pull off a successful reboot.
From: YetAnothrShadow | #005 Or they just don't see Megaman in their future releases of money grabbers and money grabbers only.
That's kind of the point, you know. Megaman isn't a money-grabber, and in fact causes losses. The idea I believe Capcom is following is, "how can we make him into a money-grabber again?".
Well, if they wanted to make money they could oh, I don't know, actually RELEASE some games with him in it!
Sure okay, maybe they're working on a reboot, but that doesn't explain not putting him in MvC and not releasing MML3, which people would have bought with proper advertising and presentation.
From: colliding | #008 Well, if they wanted to make money they could oh, I don't know, actually RELEASE some games with him in it!
Sure okay, maybe they're working on a reboot, but that doesn't explain not putting him in MvC and not releasing MML3, which people would have bought with proper advertising and presentation.
Because it isn't worth the effort to make a game that 200k people are going to buy. Look at sales figures for Megaman Whatever games: with a few exceptions, none of them crack a million, and most don't hit half a million either, hovering around a quarter or so. Not putting him on MvC3 is something that is still kind of unexplained, but MML3 was basically nowhere near as complete as we thought according to the final bits of information we got about it, so a combination of factors (mostly sales though) caused its cancellation.
From: Azp2k32 | #002 None of that explains the constant taunting with things like MML3 and Mega Man's lack of appearance in MvC3. Sure, you can make the argument that they don't want Legends 3 since that would be stupid in conjunction with the reboot-but the months of taunting still makes no sense. And choosing to not include him yet include Zero makes even less sense in the context of a reboot. Sure, maybe Zero isn't part of the new series and they don't care about him being in it thusly (and same with Tron). But then that still leaves you with a lack of explanation for why they do all the constant teasing/taunting with the Mega Man poster in the background, the Mega Man alt costume, etc.
tired of this stupid tripe from Mega Man fans. They have the thinnest skin EVER and automatically assume any mention of Mega Man is an attack on them. None of it is taunting at all. Seth did admit that putting Mega Man in Wolverine's spot on the Days of Future Past poster was an in-joke regarding Mega Man's recent status, but I'd hardly call that taunting, if anything it's more acknowledging that they understand.
And I GUARANTEE that if, instead of putting Mega Man references here and there that fans immediately took as "trolling," Capcom were to just not put any references of him in the game at all, you'd still complain, only this time it would be "They're trying to kill Mega Man by acting like he doesn't exist!!"
-- (10:17:09 PM) Ed Bellis: i think pac-man just keeps repeating, for instance (10:17:26 PM) ertyu: ya well tell that to billy michtlle
From: KanzarisKelshen | #009 Because it isn't worth the effort to make a game that 200k people are going to buy. Look at sales figures for Megaman Whatever games: with a few exceptions, none of them crack a million, and most don't hit half a million either, hovering around a quarter or so. Not putting him on MvC3 is something that is still kind of unexplained, but MML3 was basically nowhere near as complete as we thought according to the final bits of information we got about it, so a combination of factors (mostly sales though) caused its cancellation.
Actually, according to the one non-Capcom person who got to play it (a Nintendo Power employee IIRC), the MML3 demo that was supposed to come out on the eShop was almost fully complete.
You want to know why the games didn't sell? Because Capcom did a **** job of promoting them. They were released without much advertisement. Word of mouth is nice, but it can only get you so far. Then they go and blame us, the fans, for MML3 being canceled. Gee, they're the ****ing developers, they should be the ones making the damn game in the first place, not us. If they can't do their job, they should be a man about it, not be like "oh, its the fans' fault! TOUGH LUCK!". That isn't hint to a reboot, that's being a coward and not accepting responsibility.
If they promoted the DS Megaman games; trailers, fliers, whatever, I guarantee you the sales would have been much, much higher. Megaman Legends 3 was going to sell incredibly well because people knew it existed. Whereas with the DS games, Capcom let them go under the radar. Its not our fault Capcom decided the games didn't need any promotion. Its why I'm sick of them. They want to blame us, their fanbase, for everything falling to pieces when they're the ones with the blood on their hands.
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