Capcom's Investor Relations page has updated to reflect the cumulative growth of various intellectual properties, with Mega Man in particular having amassed 31 million units worldwide (as of June 30th, 2016). The franchise now ranks fourth in Capcom's heavy hitters catalog behind Monster Hunter, Street Fighter, and Resident Evil.
The number includes 134 titles released across a 29-year period. When we last checked in, the franchise was sitting at 30 million in 2013. Due to a lack of titles released within this three year period, today's milestone is minimal at best. It goes without saying Mega Man Legacy Collection contributed to the bump - exactly how much we do not know.
EDIT: For those claiming it's been 31 million for a while now, check the archives. It was 30 million from 2013-2015. From this, we can deduce MMLC helped push it along January 1st onward.
Source: Capcom IR
To put this in perspective games like Super Mario, Pokemon, and Sonic sale about that many units within a single or 2/3 game releases. New Super Mario Bros alone sold over 30 million units, yet people think Mega Man is in that league? Whatevas
ReplyDeletecapcom was making too many megaman games with no advertising for them.
DeleteYou know what's the difference?Mario and Pokemon belong to Nintendo which creates consoles,Sonic was selling good when Sega was releasing consoles,now it sells much worse.
DeleteOf course, Mega Man's sales are bad i'm not questioning that,but for Capcom it didn't matter,because they sometimes released one series on one engine,which in the end was very profitable.
DeleteI think number of games is the reason why Mega Man is so well known.
As soon as Capcom starts treating Mega Man anywhere near as well as Nintendo treats Mario or Pokemon and the sales still don't compare, get back to me.
Delete@Anon3:27: I don't know what you mean, treat Mega Man with less games or quality? Make them better? That proposition is perplexing.
DeleteAre you saying Mega Man sucks or something? Like for example Powered Up is that much worse than New Super Mario Bros or something?
Or are you talking about advertisement? Like how Pokemon's very first set of games sold more than Megaman as a franchise? Or how SMB3 outsold MM2 literally 16x over with around the same amount of advertisement and exposure prior to release?
I don't know when exactly to get back to you, can you get back to me instead when people accept maybe people generally aren't as interested in MM as other things?
Pokemon and Mario or heck even Zelda could make a game about potty training and it would out sale any Mega Man game. You wanna know a game series that kinda outsales Megaman from Nintendo per game? Metroid, yet Metroid is one of the least active franchises Nintendo has, and it generally outsales Megaman. In my mind if Megaman was at Nintendo it'd be the deadest thing ever.
Most of Nintendo's franchises will outsell the majority of Capcom's franchises not just Mega Man, to put this in perspective a bit more the Street Fighter series has 38 million unit sales across the franchise, Capcom's best selling franchise currently is Resident Evil at 69 million units sold. So in the scheme of Capcom franchises it's not doing too bad really, i think the poster above is right in that Mega Man is an icon of gaming & is well known within the gaming community but the majority of joe public might not know who he is, if you show a picture of Sonic or Mario or even Pikachu to a random person on the street 9/10 they'll know who they are, i doubt you'd get the same result with Mega Man tbh. Also yeah the whole Nintendo buying the IP is a bad idea, most of Ninty's franchises outsell Mega Man sadly & look at franchises like Metroid which has gone without a game for pretty much the same amount of time as Mega Man as well as franchises like F-Zero, StarTropics & lets not forget how long it took Ninty to make a Kid Icarus sequel last time. (source for sales data on franchises - http://www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/finance/salesdata.html)
DeleteI 100% agree with you pure unadulterated logic Vhyper.
DeleteHere's the difference between me/you and the people I refer to. We put Mega Man in perspective, you take it a bit further and put Capcom in perspective but the result is still the same.
Also I think with SFV capcom hit the mark with SF and are doing pretty decent with the branding of the RE franchise to a degree (UCorps notwithstanding), see here's the thing with SF it's a multi-million seller at it's peak and millions to 500,000 generally. Here's why SFV works, SF sales in chunks the dwindles down to form a core of dedicated players that finacially support the game long past its initial title's release, so Capcom builds on that and markets around that by making one game (SFV) that they will continually update for the next several years implementing things like micro transactions. RE is mixing old with new long story short.
Anyway you're a reasonable dude and I agree with you on things.
Vhype makes a valid point but
DeleteMegaman would sell far better if capcom would actually put money into advertising the series.
A good example is Fire Emblem with both recent releases that being awakening and fates they put advertising on that on a new level for what FE had before. Hell it even got on tv with awakening and i think fates as well, It was on youtube and everywhere else the hype around the series was on a new level from what it had been before.
FE was a dying franchise before that happened with awakening possibly being the last game in series if it didn't sell well. But with the massive advertising campaign they did for series it sold well hell the last two releases have been each selling better then previous iterations.
This brought the series from extinction to being one of nintendo new go to properties.
Capcom can keep making SFV and re games but those eventually will become dull also i dont see adverts for them often if at all its just word of mouth from what i know.
Capcom needs to get back into the game like they did with BN series how they had commercials for it and hell even a card game.
I think capcom has lost faith on its self due to bad management along with having board members who are to afraid to venture out into the new age of gaming where they embrace fans along with other things.
Till then i don't see capcom actually caring about any other franchise they have other then SFV and RE eventually they will bleed that dry. Then what?
Capcom you need to step up and do fans justice. Bring us a new megaman game be it legends or something else andadvertise it like no other and i can guarantee you that it will sell well.
Same can be said for okami
you have games that are great and have built a fan base over the years you are missing out on money nd letting other companies fill in the void you refuse to fill in
You got inticreate to pretty much take side scrolling megaman for themselve with gunvolt when it should be YOU
"capcom was making too many megaman games with no advertising for them."
ReplyDeleteWe have a winner! What Capcom has failed to do is establish a universally recognizable brand. Nintendo has spent a lot of money making sure that everyone is familiar with Mario and Pikachu via commercials on TV, in-store advertising, in-store merchandise, etc. Capcom, on the other hand, rarely showed Mega Man commercials and almost never had a presence in-store. (And all of this online-only merch doesn't help the situation either.) So it's not that Mega Man games are not good, but just that they performed way worse than they should have due to a lack of advertising. IMO, had Capcom taken the same amount of advertising money spent on SFV promos, etc. and spent it on a recent Mega Man game, Mega Man sales would be better and we'd still have new games being released.
Blame everything but people's interests huh?
DeleteI've seen plenty of Mega Man stuff at stores and commercials on TV, MM still barely outsales a single game from something like what is mentioned above. Street Fighter by sheer natural market at it's peak with a single game amassed over a billion dollars literally and a heck of a lot of units on SNES over 6 million. Street Fighter now is a higher selling franchise than MM with fewer games. Stop blaming Capcom and comparing MM to Street Fighter as if Street Fighter was given special treatment, because there was a time when Street Fighter went 10 years without a game while MM went through 4 different series each with at least 2 games as well as support for pre existing series, to the point where the creators outright said if you want to see MM continue support it cause it's not selling.
But it's easier to blame Capcom.
I mean, I don't see why we can't blame Capcom foremost for the recent treatment of the franchise. I mean, its last several notable games were Xover (crap), MM9+10 (great/good, but the latter was just trying to emulate the former's success), Operate Shooting Star (lazy + wasted potential) and Star Force 3 (the end to a mediocre series of games). Then you have the several cancelled games on top of that, with MML3 chief among them. I mean, yeah, given the sheer volume of Mega Man games, it hasn't been a particularly high-selling franchise on a game-by-game basis, but I don't think you can pin the recent status of the francise on people not being interested in said franchise as much as you think you can.
Deletethat's what i mean by saying capcom were releasing too many games with no advertisements. 4 main series in span of 8 years? that's too much to keep fans invested for the series to point they forced fans to pick one series to support instead of all of them. let's not mention the lack of advertisements those games got. maybe they'll get one or 2 trailers at most from announcement till release date.
Deleteso yes, capcom are to blame for ruining megaman.
@TAG: I'm not talking about recently. Anyway you're a prime example of what I mean, to you MMSF is mediocre and I take nothing away from you for saying that, but just as easily as you can say that about it or come up with something to discredit MM10, people can and do that with any MM game "MMZX is so lame Capcom is running out of ideas" MMBN is just a Pokémon clone blah bla blah so on and so forth.
DeleteSad news but gaming is generally a school yard kinda popularity contest where despite merits or facts 90% of the time the things that are popular trample the less popular, not by their own accord but by the ones that put them in that position.
@Sckarton: Look at Protodude's list at the bottom, they did get advertised.
@Tag the MMSF series wasn't mediocre it was great, the final entry was one of the finest Mega Man titles To ever be released.
DeletePeople just didn't play them because Capcom oversaturated the market with too many MM titles, BN fans judged the games on the concept of being BN sequels rather than judging them based on their own merits which caused them to overlook so many things about the series.
Critics were tired of Mega Man titles frequently releasing and needed a scapegoat BN was over with so they bashed Star Force in its place.
First of all, sorry for accidentally posting this quote outside of the original thread. Sometimes its a little hard to see at a glance if you are replying to the end of a thread or posting a new thread.
DeleteAnyway, the intent of my comment was not to place blame. The question was asked why Mega Man wasn't in the same league as Mario, Sonic, Street Fighter, etc., and I was agreeing that visibility/advertising may have been a factor. As Protodude noted, there *were* TV advertisements, but Mario/Sonic had *significantly* more advertising not just on TV but on posters/displays/etc. in stores. Furthermore, Street Fighter promotes its games via competitive tournaments where players can win money, and Mega Man does not. So my opinion remains unchanged that the amount of advertising could be one of the reasons why Mario, Sonic, and SF are more universally recognized as opposed to Mega Man.
So I am just trying to evaluate Mega Man's lack of popularity compared to the other franchises mentioned from a business perspective. I am not saying that it is all Capcom's fault or all the fans' fault (because placing the blame solely on the fans implies that Mega Man games are bad and nobody likes them...which is not at all true), but that weak advertising could have been a contributing factor.
@Anon8:51
Delete"because placing the blame solely on the fans implies that Mega Man games are bad and nobody likes them"
That sentence..... SMH. First I don't know why Mega Man is not that saleable despite advertisements, TV shows, a movie, merchandise etc (some things just catch on and have a domino effect, and some don't I guess) but I personally (even though I can't quantify it) believe Mega Man is super popular (as in known), there is no way Mega Man isn't, it just is, its been around everything. Mega Man just doesn't sale well.
Second, why would placing blame solely on fans equate to the games being bad??? Popularity (as in known and liked) does not mean something is quality or vice versa. Shin Megami Tensei for example, a legendary long running JRPG series, critically acclaimed for it's art direction, theme, game concepts (the creators of the monster recruiting system), and writing for example has one of its most epic and heavily promoted games SMT3N (that was the best selling game in the franchise at the point of release) outsold by MMSF2. Then releases P4 way late in the PS2's life two years after it was succeeded by the PS3, people who weren't frequenting Japanese media barely heard of P4 and the thing "blows up" making Persona a headline series, and that game still couldn't outsale MMSF.
Point is there are plenty of things that wished they had a fraction of what even Mega Man has, but they don't suck, they just aren't popular.
Depressing. Though it puts why the series is dead into perspective.
ReplyDeleteIt's also easy to see why a series would be dead if it has been as poorly managed as this one has been.
DeleteSpeaking of TV commercials, I'd like to remind everyone that, because of the rate Mega Man games were coming out, Capcom USA ONLY advertised the games in groups. See:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9wHxkfmBjM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKXF_HM2PFA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elrzC3Bj9Pk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD9NhO9vyM0
Confusing as hell for the average consumer.
Mega Man 3 and Mega Man Legends were the only titles in the US to receive their own *individual* commercials, BTW.
See now, not only did the vast majority of games not get advertised in the west, but when they did decide to do advertisements they were down right terrible.
DeleteSeconds of gameplay for each game shown, distracting transitions, and nothing but people talking about how there's a lot of Mega Man. They couldn't even be bothered to show which games they were showing the gameplay for at the times where the gameplay was actually on screen.
Look at that third one specifically. That's a very short commercial to try and sell one game and the shortest of the lot, but they used it to try and sell five. The extra humorous thing about it is that one of those five games didn't even end up getting made, yet by simply flashing on screen for a second it got more air time than a lot of other Mega Man games.
How can anyone look at this and genuinely act like this series is well advertised?
Point me to the super long Street Fighter TV adverts. I don't think there was a single MGS3 US advert on TV and if there were it was incredibly sparse. Show me a single bit of gameplay from the Final Fantasy III US commercial or a single FF Tactics TV advert (both multi-million unit sellers). I'd like to see the TV advert for Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, yet it still sold a over a million units.
Delete@AnonymousJuly 30, 2016 at 9:40 PM
DeleteFirst off, a commercial doesn't have to be super long if it's focused. None of the Mega Man trailers are focused, but if you look up SF2 TV adverts, they aren't super long, but they focus on fighting and the games more than any of these do. They also had arcades helping promote them, back when they were still popular outside of Japan. More recently SFV has had trailers for the initial release, the story mode release, and has had trailers airing before big films such as Batman vs Superman.
MGS3 did indeed have adverts in the US that, albeit a bit cliche, did a fine job of focusing on some of the dramatic moments of the game. Earlier MGS games also had adverts in the US that used things like comedy to help sell the product.
As for Final Fantasy, do you mean FFVI which was called FFIII in the U.S? As for Tactics, a quick google search and I was able to find this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hznq14RrHR0
Here's the Marvel 3 one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0wdfGvEleI
The vanilla Marvel 3 also had tv commercials. Please look into these things yourself before making comments like this.
Moreover, what's your point? I never compared Mega Man to any other series. I simply said it was a poorly promoted one, which you did not do a good job of refuting at all. You even tried citing specific games, but even if say MGS3 hadn't received much promotion, I'm talking on a franchise level. If a single Mega Man game was poorly promoted, I wouldn't have an issue with that. It's the franchise as a whole I feel is poorly promoted.
Even if those other franchises HAD been as poorly promoted as you were trying to make them out to be, would that really matter? It would in no way mean that Mega Man is a well promoted franchise, just because other ones weren't too, though as I've pointed out you were kind of off base with those claims.
@4:53AM:Focused is relative in this context, even considering that Mega Man could have had an advert advertise the brand on TV and caught interest, thereby leading people to check them out in magazines, internet trailers and online news outlets like IGN or what have you, which go into detail describing the games at any point in its existence. SFV's trailer on TV barely showed off gameplay it was way more about the community than anything else.
DeleteNever denied MGS3 having adverts, I was around during release and actively watching TV and never saw it, then looked it up online and couldn't find anything but people describing it is all I'm saying. I was specifically talking about 3 BTW don't know why you are bringing up other entries. Also love how the older MGS commercials barely show gameplay but they are *comical* yet have Mega Man commercials literally with different types of demographics gushing over the franchise, but one is considered helping the franchise the other specifically hurting it...
Yes of course I mean FFVI US FFIII, was there any other kind with a US TV advert? Also I am not talking about FFT Advanced I am talking about FFT the original, which btw outsold the massively more so advertised following portable entry.
I never seen UMvC3's US advert and couldn't really find it at a moments notice, my bad, but that game specifically sold poorly at launch, not until 2 years after release it gradually sold a million units.
I also am not talking about vanilla MvC3 no need to bring that up.
My point is it's a stretch to say Mega Man being poorly promoted specifically with TV ads is the reason for its lack of sales, since others have sold well despite not having much presence on TV spots. Here are some franchise that are generally poorly promoted on TV yet are consistently multi million unit pushers, Counter Strike, Civilization, The Elder Scrolls. Here are three despite massive pushes on TV fail anyway, Viewtiful Joe, Monster Rancher, Bubsy, *I picked game series that are generally well regarded or acclaimed so that this excuse wouldn't come up later*. Not even mentioning all the individual games in a series that have had TV spots but failed anyway like EarthBound(couldn't be more of what you're looking for in a T.V commercial) or Beyond Good & Evil or Shadow of the Colossus and things that had next to no TV presence yet sold really well like any of the Namco museum games (which where more advertised in JP but sold way more in the US) or the more recent Shovel Knight or Minecraft and so much more miscellaneous titles.
When talking about ads being "focused" I was referring to each game getting its own ad. I thought that was clear, if not I apologize. But SFV has had multiple trailers on TV now, one that focused solely on the cinematic story mode of the game, not to mention everywhere else. You'd never see that kind of mass coverage for a Mega Man game.
DeleteYou literally said "I don't think there was a single MGS3 US advert on TV and if there were it was incredibly sparse." So I pointed out that it did have adverts, that's all. Also comedy has been used in advertisement pretty much forever and is still used today because it works. Having kids say something is cool or there's a lot of something without actually describing it or showing it properly is used much less commonly because it's much less effective.
As for FF, I had to ask just to make sure there was no confusion. But again, though it doesn't show gameplay, it uses comedy to sell the product. Which isn't ideal, but that actually leads into my main point.
Same thing with UMvC3. The reason I mentioned vanilla MvC3 goes back to my main point. Marvel 3 got advertisement consistently for each game. As such, it was treated better. It's difficult to advertise one thing well, then never talk about something again and just expect a franchise to keep selling.
The point I was trying to drive home is that Mega Man is a poorly promoted FRANCHISE. The entire thing has had largely sparse advertisement, where as games you mentioned like Final Fantasy, or MGS, have had consistent advertisement throughout their lifetimes. That's my problem with the way Capcom has handled it. Even more so, I wasn't talking strictly about TV spots. I said the series has been poorly advertised, which goes beyond TV. I simply focused on the TV commercials because that's what Protodude's comment was about. That's also why it's important to bring up things like arcades that helped promote Street Fighter more than any TV commercial possibly could.
Don't get me wrong, I understand what you're saying about TV spots, and even advertisement as a whole. Even if Mega Man had been treated proper in terms of advertisement, there's no guarantee it would have been outrageously successful or anything.
I just would have loved for the franchise to get a proper chance before people start going on about how it "doesn't sell." If Capcom wants it to sell, they need to attempt to sell it.
"SFV has had multiple trailers on TV now, one that focused solely on the cinematic story mode of the game, not to mention everywhere else"
DeleteThat's now I was talking pre-launch. Thay have too keep SFV alive btw they banked on supporting it for the next 5 years, and now they kinda have no choice. Oh and thanks for the focus explanation I was indeed mistaken and now it is clear to me what you meant.
"You literally said "I don't think there was a single MGS3 US advert on TV and if there were it was incredibly sparse.""
I know, I still think that, but I never said I know for a fact there isn't any adverts, I pretty much said this in detail. Where is the contradiction?
That's fine with FFIV all I'm saying is that it's messed up how you can commend commend as a reliable seller but outright praise as not.
What I am saying about UMvC3 though is that if the ads helped so much why after two years when the ads stopped it had a nearly 50a5 increase in sales?
In closing I understand what you are saying, I just disagree. I actually think Mega Man was least advertised on TV, I've run into more ads on the internet and magazines.
Anyway if you're the Anon I've been talking to and that responded below, let me just say that you are right I do not know if advertisement issues are the cause or partly the cause in a significant way, if I implied or stated as much let me just formally renounce that. I just don't *believe* ads were much of an issue.
they have to* commend comedy* 50(%) not a5* I've ran* typo corrections.
DeleteSFV did have a trailer pre-launch though, and while it did have a lot to do with the community, there was still more gameplay of it than those Mega Man trailers which were trying to advertise multiple games at once. They also had trailers at Capcom tournaments and E3, but those hit more of an echo chamber, so they probably aren't as effective as general TV commercials.
DeleteAlso, at least in the U.S., there was this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G90QtsVaz-g
There's no real contradiction, I was just pointing out how you said you didn't think there were, and that you didn't see them yourself, but they did exist, so comparing it to Mega Man to put Mega Man as a series that would sell less with the same advertisement doesn't seem like an apt comparison. Apologies again for the confusion.
It's not so much that I mean to condemn praise as a means to sell a product, it's more so that those commercials are terrible at advertising the product in any sense, even using praise. There are no reviews of praise being put on screen like you would usually see in praise commercials, just kids very vaguely talking about how there's a lot of Mega Man, you shoot things in the games, and they like it. All while not explaining which of the various Mega Man games they trailers are barely showing off at all the kids are talking about. It attempts to advertise all of the games with a broad trailer, but does a poor job at advertising any of them as a result.
It's fine that you disagree, and I agree that Mega Man was the least advertised on TV and was promoted more elsewhere, but I still feel that the way it WAS advertised was very poorly done. Appearing in magazines like Nintendo Power is cool for me, because I'm into video games already and would have something like Nintendo Power, but then it hits the echo chamber I mentioned earlier. People who see things like that were more likely to already know about Mega Man to begin with.
TV advertisements tend to hid a much wider audience, which is why it also tends to be more expensive. Capcom's strategy with Mega Man has always been low investment/risk, low reward, and it worked out for a while. I just don't like the way people try to compare Mega Man's sales to bigger franchises when it hasn't been treated as one of those big franchises, or managed/marketed nearly as well.
Also I forgot to mention about Marvel 3, that game had trouble at launch because of bad word of mouth due to the stunts Capcom pulled releasing the Ultimate version less than a year later. I believe that played a major factor in that game being more of a "slow burn" so to speak. Letting upset fans cool down from that, and the looming fact that due to the licensing issues the game and it's DLC were going to have a limited future lead to the pickup in sales.
DeleteAt least that's how I believe things played out.
@AnonymousJuly 30, 2016 at 9:40 PM
ReplyDeleteYou seem to forget that TV has historically represented a small fraction of the advertising for games in the US. For a better comparison, how many times have you seen a demo unit for Mega Man or a poster for Mega Man at a store? I have never seen such things, but I do remember playing a demo units loaded with Street Fighter 2 and a lot of popular Mario and Sonic games. They were also usually accompanied by very large store displays.
At any rate, what is the point that you are trying to make? (Other than simply stating that Mega Man is not in the same league as Mario, Sonic, SF, Pokemon...) You are saying that Mega Man is "super popular" but are repeatedly insisting that it could in no means be related to the fact that Mega Man has not been advertised as well as (or at least had the same visibility as) other video game characters. If a series that you describe as popular does not seems to be selling well, why is that in your opinion? Are the games bad, is the whole idea of the character bad, do people just not know about the games, are the so-called "fans" really not fans at all, are people just tired of buying games? Please be more specific as answering "what and why" would benefit the discussion substantially.
@2:09PM:how many times have you seen a demo unit for Mega Man or a poster for Mega Man at a store?: A couple of times I've played a Demo for Mega Man just like any other franchise I follow, I didn't receive consistent demos from any one series growing up or even now, that's just my experience. Mega Man posters at stores though I've seen many many times, Nearly every time I use to go to game stores they would have Mega Man merch on display. My old GameCrazy had a giant MM Legends cutout, a small classic collector's game store I recently was brought to visit had MM plushies, strategy guides and artbooks all over the place. I even saw Mega Man posters in random TV shows that went to a game store setting like Veronica Mars... I'd also like to say Many of my old GameInformer magazines had a back page Mega Man advert, front covers of Tips&Tricks had Mega Man covers, even one of my Anime Insiders Video Game issues has Mega Man on the cover.
DeleteFirstly when I say popular I mean as in known not known and liked (or liked enough to pursue buying the games) I specified this. It might not even be well known, that is just my guess providing the fact that he's been next to everything that was popular, has had all types of media.... Actually the only thing I think it doesn't have is a live action movie or a movie released in Western theaters in general.
"If a series that you describe as popular does not seems to be selling well, why is that in your opinion?": Again I. Don't. Know. I am not the answer man, I like Mega Man games and buy Mega Man games among other related stuff. Ask the million's of gamers why, not me. It's not like some random person was like *Pisst...hey check out this sweet underground franchise* I just saw it on TV, liked it, bought it and got more and more into it, it wasn't even ever that hard to follow Mega Man either, especially during the golden years of the internet age.
"Are the games bad?": Why would that be the only conclusion? What if people just generally like things more and can't spend or find time or resources for both other things they like and Mega Man?
"Is the whole idea of the character bad": Maybe it's not bad but doesn't suit many peoples tastes, why is it that if me or you don't like something it equates to it being bad?
"Do people just not know about the games?": Maybe some do and choose other options, there are a lot of game options out there, or maybe they don't know about the games (which seems like the less likely to me).
"Are the so-called "fans" really not fans at all": Well.... I don't know what that means, I mean... The games do sale some kind of numbers, I doubt all of that is only newcomers.... If you are asking why the games don't stay a consistent high number, my guess is that circumstances like life obligations or other interests for many lend themselves to the rise and decline of sales at certain points.
"Are people just tired of buying games?": Maybe some people are, I don't know. I am not tho and I don't hang with anyone personally that is so I have no reference to go by.
Please be more specific as answering: I am being as specific as I can possibly get, what do you want from me? I am not God I can't explain exactly why things are the way they are or why people do what they do. I'll tell you this much though you do not know what and why either.
the answer is very simple, too many games with little to no advertisements and the games got advertisements are poorly made as protodude demonstrated. in 2003 alone, megaman got like 5 games. that's too much for anyone especially for the fans. what did the fans do? stick to their favorite subseries until they get a breathing room to try those games. when did we get the breathing room? in 2010 where MM10 was released aka the last game ever made for the series.
Delete@Skarton: Excluding miscellaneous cell phone or even arcade games that were never ported, releases in other nations and version updates, Pokemon had three games in the years 2001, 2006, 2008, 2013 and 2016 four games in the years 1998, 1999, 2000, 2011 and 2012, five games in the years 2003, 2005, 2009 and 2015 all selling ranging from good to extremely well.
DeleteNot even gonna mention Mario, except let's just say in 2005 7 noteworthy games were going and a buttload of cameos and spinoff appearances.
Also no fan has to get every single Mega Man game, just get the whatever they like, that's why you have disparities like Mega Man X5 selling pretty good while Mega Man Legends 2 sale poorly, or MMX4 vs MM8 etc
Point is, stop trying to find excuses not rooted in fact.
@AnonymousAugust 1, 2016 at 5:33 AM:
DeleteSo you say you don't know why Mega Man sales haven't been good, but you say you *DO* know that it cannot be due to advertising in any way? This is why I don't understand.
"Pokemon had three games in the years 2001, 2006, 2008, 2013 and 2016 four games in the years 1998, 1999, 2000, 2011 and 2012, five games in the years 2003, 2005, 2009 and 2015 all selling ranging from good to extremely well. Not even gonna mention Mario, except let's just say in 2005 7 noteworthy games were going and a buttload of cameos and spinoff appearances."
Valid point, but please remember that (from a quick Google check) it looks like Nintendo spent waaaay more money on advertisements (on TV, in stores, at E3, in magazines, on their website...) for the Mario and Pokemon games in that time period than Capcom spent for Mega Man games. Such differences in visibility *could* just maybe account at least in part for the better sales figures, right?
I'm going to hazard a guess about sales numbers for MMLC.
ReplyDeleteVGChartz isn't always accurate, and SteamSpy itself has a fairly wide margin of error. Take the figures with a grain of salt, this is just guessing from available data.
Nonetheless, the numbers seem to break down as thus:
- 3DS version sold 190,000 according to VGC. (Just physical?)
- PS4 version sold 70,000 according to VGC.
- XB1 version does not have listed sales figures.
- Steam version sold 40,000 according to SS.
Altogether, it seems to have moved at least 300,000 units as an estimate. That's not too bad at all! The 3DS appears to be where most of the sales are concentrated, so whenever we see new things, that may be where it all lands.