Hot on the heels of Japan, Capcom USA just confirmed Mega Man X Legacy Collection 1 and 2! Both will be available in the US on July 24th for $19.99 each digitally. A retail bundle will be available for $39.99 that includes two discs on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. On Nintendo Switch, the retail bundle will include a single cartridge with the first collection and a digital download voucher for the second collection.
Additionally, we have some new details and info about previously announced features. The X Challenge mode – a boss rush where you face off against multiple bosses at the same time – you can choose to take three Special Weapons into battle or go for a buster-only run. You can share your times with other players and see where you rank on the leaderboard.
New music for both collections has been confirmed as well. The music playing in the Japanese trailer is likely one such piece. Remixes of classic X series tunes are reportedly included too. Where they will be featured – in the games themselves or maybe just the menus – has yet to be confirmed.
Stay tuned for more updates!
They're doing here EXACTLY what they did with the original Mega Man Legacy Collection 1+2. They just want more money, and a reason to NOT give us a cartridge (N-Switch) for the second set of games. Kind of a sad move, but whaever.
ReplyDeleteOf course they want money, that's how businesses work.
DeleteYeah... and yet the fans are starved for years to make that money and treated like trash ��♂️ It’s a horrible idea no one wants a re re re reralease �� and business only succeeds when there is enough demand and they created the demand by starving the series �� that’s not good and honest business it’s retarded greed at its best.. there’s being a fan then there’s boot licker 🤷♂️
DeleteThey've treated us how we've treated them.
Delete@FusionArmorX
DeletePlease tell me you're joking.
FusionArmorX has a small point though, say what you want about "bad" Sonic games but at least the fans bought the games THEN complained. Well at least the audience I should say bought the games along with the fans.
DeleteMega Man for the vast majority has pretty bad sales and still got supported with a ton of games (well at least pre Keiji Inafune leaving) no way you're telling me the vast majority of Mega Man is that bad.
People over and I mean overblow how bad X6 and X7 are, acting like they were the worst games ever created. Just for examples sake look at Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) a literally broken game, forget design ideas, actually technically bugged out of its brain, it still sold way more than (what's a good Mega Man game?) X4 (everyone likes that one for some reason right?) and every X game outside of X1. Not enough of an example? What about Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, that's a pretty bad game right? Well not only did it out sale the living hell out of Mega Man X Command Mission which MMX:CM was sold on 2 platforms one of which is the best selling of all time, SC:DB out scored it in critical reception. Mega Man X Command Mission is THAT bad? That bad that it can't beat Sonic Chronicles in any way? I can go on and on with examples. The is not exclusive to Sonic either I can compare it to any successful series. Also when I compare it to any under performing series Mega Man looks lucky as heck for all the chances it gets comparatively.
Mega Man didn't have "pretty bad sales."
DeleteIt was, and has always been a very "safe" series. The games don't get big budgets, so they don't have to sell as much to profit. Which is why we got so many games in the first place. They didn't keep making them because they were losing money on the games.
Sega constantly promotes Sonic, regardless of the quality of the games. They tend to give them bigger budgets (barring spin-offs like Boom and Chronicles), do things to help advertise them like cross promotions, etc.
Also, voicing complaints but buying the games anyway isn't necessarily a good idea. It doesn't inspire change and as a result there have been a lot of bad Sonic games. Only when the sales started to tank with games like the Sonic Boom titles and Lost World did Sega decide to try and start changing.
They still aren't perfect, as we've seen with Sonic Forces, but the third Sonic Boom game they made was, as I understand it, not too bad, and they have been putting support into projects like Sonic Mania.
So let me get this straight. You are a the owner of a bakery and you have 300 people to pay, so instead of making a batch of goods to sell you instead make a single breadstick because its cheap to make and you'll get some extra pennies out of it?
DeleteMy point is profit doesn't = auto success.
Even then how cheap do you think Mega Man X, X4, X7, X8 XCM, MML etc etc are? Mega Man X trilogy on the SNES seemed cheap in comparison to what, Super Metroid, Return of Shinobi, Rocket Knight? XCM looks budgeted compared to what, Shin Megami Tensei III, Dark Cloud 2? I seriously legit want to know what gives people the impression that Mega Man is some budgeted series in general and that Capcom kept making games because of some budgeted profit.
Funny thing you mention Sonic Boom and it being a Sonic game that sold bad (worse selling in fact) and it still outsold 60% of Mega Man games, percent estimate would be higher if not for Battle Network universe of games, which Mega Man "fans" love to attack and pick on.
@Anon 1 and 3: In all that mess of text, the only thing I understood from that is that Sonic is a bigger video game mascot than Mega Man, which really isn't saying all that much when Sonic was the face of an entire generation of consoles.
DeleteYour bakery example is junk, so I'll ignore that part.
DeleteHowever, I understand and agree that profit doesn't automatically make something successful.
However when you say "I seriously legit want to know what gives people the impression that Mega Man is some budgeted series in general and that Capcom kept making games because of some budgeted profit" the answer is because that's how the games are.
There are a few examples you mentioned that are noteworthy, the biggest budget to poor sales ratio I think is definitely MML, which was almost certainly the most expensive Mega Man game ever made at the point in time that it existed.
But you're talking about a series with over 130 titles. Why do you think they made that many games? Do you seriously think they kept pumping them out when they weren't successful? It makes no sense why there would be THAT many games if the series wasn't making money.
People say the games are budget titles because asset re-use, very short development cycles, and lack of any significant promotion. They would occasionally do bigger budgets than what the series usually got, usually for things like jumping to new technology. For example you mentioned X (SNES ) X4 (First X game to move beyond SNES hardware) And Legends (PSX and 64, as well as the first real 3D game ), but beyond that they would generally keep things inexpensive where they could.
Heck, X4, 5, and 6 were all kind of strange in that they were 2d games on the Playstation during a time where 3D games were hugely popular. But that was easier, cheaper and less risky for Capcom than say, continuing down the Legends line.
I also wouldn't say X7, X8, or XCM were particularly high budget games either. Relative to other Mega Man games maybe, but not the general market.
As for Sonic, again, you're talking about a series that has had many more years of strong promotion and bigger budget games than Mega Man. Not to mention that Sonic Boom itself was promoted with a cartoon and a comic at the same time, as well as other Sonic games still coming out (compared to Mega Man which Capcom had an Archie comic going when no games were out, a cartoon that still hasn't aired and apparently isn't related to anything else, and other than that a lot of nothing until this year, basically having all the same elements of Sonic Boom without any coordination. )
As for Battle Network, that series is still quite popular. I've seen more people asking for a collection of those games than some arbitrary group of so called "fans" attacking or picking on it. It was a popular series. A few people dismissing it doesn't reflect popular "fan opinion" or any sort of consensus of the fan base at all.
@TAG: Yeah Metroid the massive Nintendo failure in terms of sales... Outsales the heck out of Mega Man, it get little chances of redemption comparatively though.
DeleteResident Evil, DMC, Street Fighter, Donkey Kong, Metal Gear, Monster Hunter, Animal Crossing freaken Yo-kai Watch(......) all outsale "mascot" Mega Man on a game to game average. Don't get butthurt at me cause Mega Man doesn't sale, I am just the messenger don't shoot me.
As for the Anon below you, it's the some old stuff. Excuses upon excuses, Sonic is a mascot, yeah so is Alex Kidd, who cares, systems don't sale mascots ask Blinx the Cat, WTH does that even mean Sonic is a bigger mascot? Duh that's the point, but not only "mascot" Sonic, I can compare any successful franchise, and guess what the franchises from large corporations that sale worse than Mega Man on average die or struggle.
Then we get the "promotion thing" yeah... T.V commercials, shows, movies and giant cover page ad spaces on magazines aren't advertisements at all.
I know, I know they were done poorly had limited runs don't convey to pick up the game blah blah blah... Keep on keeping on, I'm sure blaming everything but general consumer interest will do wonders.
BTW LOL at 2D sprites being "easier, cheaper and less risky to do than 3D models" in the 32bit era, THAT is a good one.
@Anonymous:
DeleteOkay, my bad. What you actually meant was "IPs that sell more than Mega Man sell more than Mega Man." Gotcha.
@AnonymousApril 13, 2018 at 6:51 PM
DeleteWow. What an incredibly childish and reductive response. I don't see how that was warranted at all as I was just trying to have a conversation.
Not that it matters much since you don't seem to want to have a civil talk about this but I'll go ahead and address a few things.
First of all, in my post I never once used the word "mascot" so your point about Alex Kidd is completely moot. If anything that series would be a good way to prove my point.
Alex Kidd is what happens to a "mascot" like series that is promoted poorly / not at all and essentially not treated like a mascot.
The way you keep harping on it in your post though, it seems like you've confused my post with TAGs. I don't know what your fixation on mascots are in this context.
You're so dismissive with how poorly promoted the series is, but taking that kind of tone does not invalidate criticisms of the way they promote it. You start off by saying T.V commercials as a means for them advertising the games.
You do realize the individual titles that received T.V commercials in the west is literally in the single digits, right? If you include the commercials they did for multiple games then you climb into the double digits, but not by much. And again, this is a series with over 130 games.
And I'm not suggesting that Mega Man has never received any promotion. In fact, two of the series that actually had shows, the Classic (albeit a loose adaptation) and Battle Network ones were both successful not only in terms of profitability, but the shows themselves were reasonably well received too. At least ratings wise.
"Movies" is a bit of a stretch. If you're talking about the OVAs. Those are pretty obscure and certainly nowhere close to the same as something like the Resident Evil or Street Fighter movies. And finally gaming magazines, which is about the only place that Mega Man was promoted with any sort of consistency, has always been niche, but cheaper than something like T.V commercials, which was the entire crux of my point.
Capcom saves money wherever they can with Mega Man.
And creating 2D sprites from scratch that need to be very fluidly animated could potentially be more expensive / risky in the 32 bit era, but you have to remember the 3D modeling technology was newer back then. People were still learning how to better utilize the new tools, it wasn't the much smoother process we have today. Not only that, but the sprite work in the later X games is fine, but the animation is hardly on par with something that WOULD be more expensive, like a number of SNK games or something like Third Strike. Not that it would have really been necessary for a Mega Man game to animate like that anyway.
Regardless.
Take a look at all of those other mascots you mentioned in your little tirade and tell me the budgets and advertisements that go into those is at all comparable to Mega Man.
You're comparing apples to oranges, but when you get called out on it, you try to dismiss it without a thought.
@TAG: No, what I meant was IP's that generally sale less than Mega Man are considered failures or struggle to maintain continuation for the most part, especially if the company making them is big and owns lots of other popular IPs.
DeleteIP's selling MORE than Mega Man on average and still struggling in the same scenario is just icing on the cake. All of this is in my first sentence, you just have to read it completely, and understanding it would be nice too. You seem literally bitter at me cause Mega Man doesn't sale, like I'm breaking your heart or something, it's not I'm saying YOU or your friends specifically don't buy Mega Man games.
Sell! It's SELL. It SELLS or doesn't SELL.
Delete@Other Anon: Yeah your right my apologies, that said you're a little put-offish as well but nonetheless no sense in not having a civil conversation. What happened is Tag started acting like an jerk and I lumped you in with em, still my fault and no excuses.
DeleteAlight let me address some things.
My mascot thing was a carry over from my response to TAG. It was just meant as a way to cover all angles so that you wouldn't follow up on that logic. Sorry for the confusion. Still I guess I underestimated your ability to not gang up on me and have an intellectually honest conversation. Again my bad force of internet debate habit.
"Alex Kidd is what happens to a "mascot" like series that is promoted poorly / not at all and essentially not treated like a mascot."
No, it proves my Point, Alex Kidd was specifically created to be a mascot as was Sonic. Sonic grew so much in popularity that he became "the mascot" and thus built confidence to invest more in it, in other words Sonic sold SEGA not the other way around which is why SEGA is now known pretty much as the Sonic company as they rarely invest in anything else. Other "mascot" like brands had aggressive marketing campaigns and fell flat on their face, Blinx (never played or even met someone who had the game before in my life, never even seen the physical copy in person, know about it through aggressive ads) and Bonk are examples of series that were promoted with TV spots, print ads and in store promotions. Which is my point "mascot" is such a superfluous term, a mascot is basically a paraphrase for "popular brand a company can rely on to advertise itself with regularly", Captain Commando was suppose to be Capcom's "mascot" for example, Mega Man, Street Fighter, Resident Evil or whathaveyou were not.
PARTII:
Delete"the individual titles that received T.V commercials in the west is literally in the single digits"
Proviso "the west", excluding the fact that Japan is a market and many series thrive over there at a significant degree over other regions like Dragon Quest (yes I know, RPG, as if action games can't be popular over there or Rockman isn't comprised of RPGs), not every successful title needs TV ads, that's like a cream of the crop thing, most games do just fine (like Civilization) with print and in store ads (a game like Dino Crisis 2 had no ads in the US yet sold the most there despite having ads in other territories), there are also press briefings, expos, websites now even, freaken the works.
By Movies I was referring to the theatrical release of Rockman EXE Program of Light and Dark. Also of course certainly nowhere close to the same as something like the Resident Evil or Street Fighter movies, Street Fighter made no exaggeration over a billion dollars in 1993 in arcade coins alone.... No not counting the 9million units sold on home consoles or the 19million units sold through revisions. In fact I can only think of a handful of series that are as influential or genre defining as Street Fighter. Wizardry, Resident Evil, Super Mario, Tetris, Wolfenstein (...) maybe an early 3D racer, I don't know... Resident Evil is Capcom's best selling franchise and became that at around maybe 20 or so games.
"like a number of SNK games or something like Third Strike"
Sign.... You just basically listed the highest end sprite work and workers of all time in terms of pixel perfect sprite animation, one of which got bankrupted several times and the other so expensive that after it failed to garner its production cost it basically discouraged Capcom from ever making a sprite based Street Fighter ever again and nearly destroyed the franchise's future. The entire reason why sprites were harder to do and more risky in the 32 bit era is A. they were largely discouraged by the market and the leading console makers and B. They were at their apex. In fact Capcom didn't want to go 3D with Mega Man they were literally obligated to by Sony as they wanted to push the boundaries of 2D sprites on that gen of disc based consoles which the PlayStation was notoriously BAD for and in exchange to get it on the leading console, offered to make a 3D game as a compromise. To make a game with the graphical fidelity of the Street Fighter III series for the original PS was actually impossible, impossible in the rawest definition. In fact porting arcade quality CPS2 games like Marvel Super Heroes and Alpha 3 was impossible, they had to legit cut large chunks of animation and other alterations just to get them to run smoothy on the original PS. Same with Metal Slug, Grandia or any other port of a game with at the time modern end sprite work.
@AnonymousApril 14, 2018 at 2:43 PM
DeleteIt's fine. I apologize as well if anything I said came across too harsh or dismissive.
Now to your points:
I still disagree with your point about Alex Kidd. It was created as a mascot, yes. But my point is that it wasn't given anywhere near the same opportunity as Sonic. Sonic being packaged with the Genesis, was given a huge push right off the bat by Sega, who desperately wanted to beat Nintendo. It was also at a time after Nintendo had helped greatly expand the market of video games as a medium to larger markets than the Sega Master System where Alex Kidd started (that and an arcade release I believe), which was at least somewhat popular in Europe as I understand, but otherwise didn't make too much of a splash.
I agree that advertisement doesn't lead to guaranteed success as I said earlier, I'm simply pointing out that is merely one of the ways Capcom kept Mega Man lower budget compared to a lot of other series.
With all of that said though, I do basically agree with you wholeheartedly that whether or not something is seen as a "mascot" is very largely superfluous. I think the fact that something can be perceived as a mascot by a market (not the companies making them) speaks to the potential selling power it could have, but other than that it doesn't mean much in my mind.
In response to Part II:
I understand that Japan is a market, that much is obvious. And series can do well even if only really popular there. But I would also suggest that a lot, if not most franchises that are big there but not elsewhere, aren't usually million sellers. That's not to say they aren't successful or profitable of course. That's exactly how I see Mega Man, as I've stated before.
I don't know why you throw in comments like "(yes I know, RPG, as if action games can't be popular over there or Rockman isn't comprised of RPGs)" That comes across as you attempting to either make a strawman argument or put words in my mouth which I don't appreciate. That said, there is some merit in considering the differences in gameplay of the games that do get popular over there as a reason as to why they do. Suffice to say most Mega Man "RPG" style games aren't very traditional after all.
As I already said, I understand advertisement, even T.V commercials, don't neccessarily guarantee success. But you were trying to compare Mega Man to franchises like "Resident Evil, DMC, Street Fighter, Donkey Kong, Metal Gear, Monster Hunter, Animal Crossing freaken Yo-kai Watch(......)" in terms of sales. My point is that there is no comparison because the difference in the way all of those franchises have been promoted since their inception is significantly different than Mega Man.
Continuing my thoughts:
DeleteAlso I wouldn't personally consider "press briefings, expos, websites" as significant forms of advertisement. They don't hurt of course, but the impact they can have on the wider market is significantly smaller than something like an ad on T.V. While it's true they have been growing substantially in recent years, there also hasn't been any Mega Man games in recent years to really promote through these means. All of that rounding back to my point that Capcom utilized these smaller, cheaper ways to promote Mega Man because it's a lower budget series for them.
I know the history of Street Fighter. Both in terms of Arcade and home console. Not only did it stand out in popularizing ideas for fighting games, but it came out during a time that was basically a perfect storm between the two. Arcades being popular helped encourage home console sales, and being able to practice at home encouraged people to go out to arcades and show off what they could do. It was a really remarkable time.
With all of that said, even compare the jump from Mega Man 1 to Mega Man 2, compared to the jump from Street Fighter 1 to Street Fighter 2. Significantly different. Street Fighter 1 did fine I believe, but just look at the difference in resources that went into its sequel, compared to Mega Man 2 which the creators of Mega Man 1 had to work on in their own time because Capcom could barely give the series the time of day.
The situations aren't really comparable.
I also understand I singled out two very expensive examples of sprite work. I did that to show that I understood that sprite work can be expensive, which is the part of your post I was responding to. That said, I was also pointing out that not all sprite work was as expensive as that and that asset re-use was a way for Capcom to save money on development, even if it meant the games would potentially have less market appeal as a result. It's less risky from a budget standpoint, but more risky from a sales standpoint. I should have made that distinction more clear.
Ultimately this is my point in all of this. I disagree with the notion that Mega Man sells "poorly," and I have stated what I believe to be Capcom's strategy with the series. I also believe that strategy hasn't changed. Mega Man is a low budget series, and the new low budget games are generally on mobile devices. While it was nearly a decade without what most would consider to be a "proper" Mega Man game, there were still new games being made for mobile devices. Because that's where the market has dictated lower budget games are made. We are getting Mega Man 11 now because of a number of factors (sales of re-releases, merchandise, and a history of the series having that safe profitability I talked about before), but even that isn't going to be a full budget game.
And personally, I think that's okay. Mega Man doesn't have to be a series that Capcom puts a huge amount of resources into. I think the market struggles a bit because too many companies DO put too much into their games in attempts to have huge sellers, even if they are significantly more risky. I think it's a better idea to have smaller scale games that can make good profits, such as with Mega Man.
I just don't thinks it's sincere to compare Mega Man to other franchises that DO get a lot of those resources.
Your first paragraph, I can agree that becoming popular is circumstantial but like I said before Sonic was bundled with the genesis to sell* (shrap) the Genesis, it was proven to specifically be popular through consumer testing. Like I said before if Sonic wasn't the thing that was popular to sell the SEGA brand and was rather the other way around with Sonic piggy backing on the success of the Genesis, we'd be talking about Altered Beast right now.
DeleteI still disagree that Capcom relatively speaking put low budget and effort on developing and promoting Mega Man. We'll just have to agree to disagree on that unless specifically told otherwise with solid evidence from Capcom themselves. Like with your SFIII example, I think SFIII is a result of the massive success of SFII and SFIV is a result of SFIII's failings. I don't think SFIII is the standard for expensive sprite work of the 32bit era and X4 is the budgeted one I think X4 is the standard for 32bit era sprite work and SFIII the over expensive exception. It's not like X4's production is akin to a good looking 16bit game.
As for the Japan market, Mega Man doesn't do particularly well there on average either and for individual examples that negate your theory about poor advertisements (which was why I brought up Japan to begin with) things like ZX and such were advertised and everything, on a popular platform in Japan and still sold really badly, Capcom even begged to support the games specifically because they were selling badly, this is categorically true statements from Capcom on sale figures that goes directly against the "it does good enough" argument for that instance.
There are games that make a decent profit compared to their development costs like Mega Man 9, but the development cost for that is so minuscule that the profit generated to recoup the costs and support the company is not sustainable to justify allocating resources to develop it regularly. Maybe that is sustainable for an indie developer but not a conglomerate like Capcom that needs all the skilled workers it can use for games that actually sustain the company's large structure.
As for putting things in your mouth about RPGs no, I was putting things in your hypothetical mouth to cover all angles. I wasn't saying you said that, I was preparing for if you say that I'd have already addressed it.
As for my comparisons with other franchises to Mega Man, I'm saying it is comparable, those are popular and get more invested in them as return it's reciprocal.
Actually the thing that gave Akira Nishitani and the core Street Fighter team confidence to reinvest in Street Fighter was the Final Fight game that was successful before hand, which was intended to be a Street Fighter sequel, but with a different approach specifically because of low confidence in the original Street Fighter concept. They later revised Street Fighter 89' into Final Fight late in development so that it wouldn't be confused with the game that came before and with the experience and confidence building from that project decided to return to Street Fighter, the rest is history.
Like I said Capcom has invested a lot into Mega Man I personally believe more so than many other game franchises that don't get nearly the same benefit, of course they've pulled back on it eventually (around 6th gen) because they'd be idiots not to but I think that is a result of poor sells not negligence on Capcom's end.
@AnonymousApril 16, 2018 at 5:15 PM
DeleteConsumer testing only gets you so far. Dead Rising 4 was "consumer tested" and we saw how that turned out. In the case of Sonic, these things tend to build off of each other. Sega releasing a new console is an exciting thing, and here's a new franchise that they are putting a lot of attention on to get excited about that they packaged with the console. They help sell each other.
If they had put together some big new Alex Kidd game to launch with the Genesis, you can bet it would have helped raise that series up in relevance as well. Would it have been as effective as the combination of the Genesis launch and Sonic? Not necessarily, though it's tough to say how far that series could have gotten if it were given the same opportunities as Sonic. Which is the point I was trying to make.
I also don't think that a low budget implies low "effort on developing Mega Man" at all. I think the teams that actually made the games did about as well as they could given their limited time and resources to make them. Hence my point about the games being low budget.
As for the idea of SFIII being expensive for the time and X4 being closer to standard, I'm actually fine with that interpretation as well. I don't mean for it to sound like Capcom has NEVER put any sort of standard resources into Mega Man games. I'm just suggesting there are for more examples of the games being budget releases with limited resources than not.
We are going to have to disagree about the promotion side of things though. I'll come back to that in a bit.
"As for the Japan market, Mega Man doesn't do particularly well there on average either..." I need more evidence for this sort of claim though. I'd like to see a source on the advertisement of ZX, and I know that game didn't sell particularly well. There were a few Mega Man games that didn't sell well. There were also a few that sold above their "weight class" so to speak.
But they didn't make over 130 games because they were losing money on all of them. You need to address why they made so many over the years if you're going to claim that the games didn't sell well in Japan or anywhere else for that matter.
ZX was one game that did poorly for a number of reasons, most of which were the result of Capcom's mismanagement of the brand in my opinion. Which has been what I've been talking about from the beginning. Also I seem to remember Capcom "begging" for support was claimed to have happened for the sequel of ZX, but only that title. If it happened for others I'd like to see proof of that as well. If I am remembering correctly, then I would add that to my list of examples of them mismanaging the brand.
There is a reason ZX got two games and then stopped after all. Compared to the Classic series which is about to hit 11 (not counting spin-offs), the X series which had eight (again, no spin-offs), not to mention all of the Battle Network games. The ones that sold well and made healthy profit continued. The ones that didn't, were stopped early. (See also: Legends )
Continuing my thoughts:
DeleteIf you look back at a number of Capcom financial reports, Mega Man was usually a series that was brought up as a series that helped them maintain profitability between bigger releases. I'll try to find some sources for you on that if you like. I seem to remember the Battle Network and Zero series specifically being mentioned. It has always been a good franchise to earn them cash on their slower years as well.
It's interesting to me that you bring up Mega Man 9 though. You claim that the "profit generated to recoup the costs and support the company is not sustainable to justify allocating resources to develop it regularly." 9 sold above and beyond Capcom's expectations, which is why they were so quick to put out 10 of course, but your claim is a part of the problem I have.
Mega Man has never really been given much of a chance to make it big. You can make a claim that Mega Man wasn't worth investing in, but during the same time frame, I have to ask, what made games like the Strider and Bionic Commando reboots worth investing in when Mega Man wasn't?
Neither of those franchises sold as much as the highest selling Mega Man games, nor were they as consistently profitable. If they were we would have seen more of them, as we did with Mega Man. Yet Strider (2014) as well as Bionic Commando (2009, the same year as Mega Man 9) not to mention Bionic Commando rearmed are all bigger budget projects than Mega Man was given the chance to have.
What do you think the reasoning is behind those decisions?
With something like Street Fighter, which sales also dropped off of very hard around the same time Mega Man started to decline as well, I understand why they gave it another chance in a big way, as opposed to the very small budget of Mega Man's return (though even then it was tough and Ono had to fight tooth and nail to get SF4 to even happen). But those other franchises leave me wondering.
"I was putting things in your hypothetical mouth to cover all angles." What you're saying is dangerously close to a straw man fallacy. You shouldn't try and dismiss something like that.
Back on point, you say the way Mega Man has been handled compared to other franchise is comparable. I still disagree. Between the budgets, promotion and the way they were handled, there may have been a few Mega Man games in its entire history that got treated in line with those other franchises, but as a whole I think they are hardly comparable.
You go on to talk about the history of Street Fighter and Final Fight (which I'd also like a source on if you have one. It sounds interesting and I'd be curious to read more about it. ), but even then, compare that to the launch of the original Mega Man game. Capcom higher ups wanted nothing to do with it, underestimated demand for the first game, had to re-print it to meet that demand, and even then refused to let the team work on Mega Man 2 unless they did it on their own time.
The way the first game was treated really set the stage for the series as a whole. They weren't interested in even giving it a proper chance right from the start.
I disagree with your claim about Capcom's investment into Mega Man being anything special in particular and feel it's more lacking than anything. I do agree that they pulled back on the games because the sales of the games eventually dwindled, but my claim is that it's BECAUSE of negligence on Capcom's end that sales of the series not only fell to being no longer worth working on, but never reached the heights that they should have if given the same opportunities as so many other franchises.
"Consumer testing only gets you so far."
DeleteAgreed, you have to consumer test positively for your product and it has to continue to perform after the fact.
"the combination of the Genesis launch and Sonic"
Sonic didn't launch with the Genesis, before you seemed to have implied that it did but I think this confirms it. The original launch of the Genesis packed with Altered Beast.
"I don't mean for it to sound like Capcom has NEVER put any sort of standard resources into Mega Man games."
Well I mean to sound like Capcom usually puts standard resources into Mega Man until 6th gen or more like until 7th gen.
"I'd like to see a source on the advertisement of ZX"
Just look up youtube Rockman ZX Japanese commercial or the like.
"There were a few Mega Man games that didn't sell well. There were also a few that sold above their "weight class" so to speak."
Selling above their weight class is the thing I am saying that isn't all that impressive, for example MM9's "weight class" is pretty much low buget indie development.
"Also I seem to remember Capcom "begging" for support was claimed to have happened for the sequel of ZX, but only that title"
You remember right, Capcom was begging to buy the sequel to see the series continue because of the massive disappointing sales of the first game.
"There is a reason ZX got two games and then stopped after all"
Yeah because it was the cutoff point. ZX would have maybe gotten at least 3 games when all the passionate Mega Man staff were given all the chances in the world back then (and while an influence like Keiji was at the helm).
Continued-
Delete"I seem to remember the Battle Network and Zero series specifically being mentioned"
I do believe Battle Network did do generally and consistently well. I don't think that was thanks to the preexisting MM fandom tho (although that is not the discussion so I'll leave it at that). Zero on the other hand on top of being outsourced, it just about did alright. Nothing to brag about, just enough to keep Inti afloat. Which is another thing "potential growth" is a huge thing investors are looking for to carry a brand, just doing consistently OK is not appealing to big companies after a while.
"what made games like the Strider and Bionic Commando reboots worth investing in when Mega Man wasn't? "
I don't particularly think those two games were massive investments (in terms of investing in the franchises), but the reason why they seem to be given a bigger opportunity than MM is because their chances were given to them in the 7th gen. Those franchises basically skipped 6th gen while Capcom was pumping out 6th gen quality X games and a ton of handheld games at the time, and were pretty much absent from 5th gen while Capcom was pumping 5th Gen quality MMC, MMX and MML games. I'd say Capcom gave Mega Man its fair share in comparison. Not only that but those two series are pretty much dormant again.
"What you're saying is dangerously close to a straw man fallacy."
It's exactly a stawman, it isn't fallacious though. I am addressing a hypothetical scenario as a preventative measure. To use the strawman analogy, I am attacking a strawman to warn the other ninja about my attack as an example.
"you say the way Mega Man has been handled compared to other franchise is comparable. I still disagree."
I agree to disagree then.
"You go on to talk about the history of Street Fighter and Final Fight"
https://game.capcom.com/cfn/sfv/column-112429?lang=en (read the section Space and Final Fight) here's an excerpt
"I was stoked, until I learned that the space allocated for graphics was going to be about half that of Forgotten Worlds.
It was only about two thirds of the original Street Fighter, really not much at all."
"We decided to put it on hold for a while, and make a different game instead.
That game was Final Fight."- Akira Yasuda.
https://www.destructoid.com/final-fight-s-birth-name-was-actually-street-fighter-89-277737.phtml (watch the whole thing)
"Capcom higher ups wanted nothing to do with it, underestimated demand for the first game, had to re-print it to meet that demand"
Never heard of that before. You don't need to source tho cause I think we are clogging up the comments. Hit me up somehow if you want to take this conversation into privacy or another more open forum.
@AnonymousApril 18, 2018 at 2:48 PM
Delete"Sonic didn't launch with the Genesis, before you seemed to have implied that it did..."
Right, looking over what I said again it does. However, while it's true Altered Beast did launch with the Genesis (which I'm sure helped the sales of that title the same way the PS4 launching with something like Knack helped it), it was a combination of Sonic and the Genesis that helped it really take off.
Moreover, I think it's important to point out that Sega got a lot more aggressive with advertisement (than they did with Altered Beast) of the Genesis AND included Sonic before things really took off. They even had that "feature" of the console "blast processing" to help show off Sonic while also implying what the console was capable of. Of course it was just marketing as "blast processing" doesn't really mean anything, but it was something they used to help sell both.
"Well I mean to sound like Capcom usually puts standard resources into Mega Man until 6th gen or more like until 7th gen."
This is where I have to disagree though. When you look at all of the asset re-use, not to mention the development time between titles of the series from its inception, it seems quite limited compared to other franchises. Again, after the first Mega Man they didn't even want to dedicate time to a sequel, and then there's things like Mega Man 7 and Mega Man X launching a mere four months apart. Not to mention, again, advertisement was sparse in the west for most of its lifetime, again compared to other franchises. I know you say you disagree with that, but I don't see how much of what they did advertising it really compares to other franchises.
"Selling above their weight class is the thing I am saying that isn't all that impressive..."
Agree to disagree there. I don't see how both Mega Man 2 and 3 selling over 1 million units on the NES isn't impressive. Million sellers weren't exactly common back then, and Capcom had their employees work on Mega Man 2 "on their own time" so you can imagine that game in particular was quite profitable for them. Mega Man X also broke a million on the SNES, which again, given the time frame is pretty impressive.
Throw in Battle Networks consistent sales and I feel, at least between the Classic, BN, early X games and Zero games that there is more than enough evidence to suggest the series was a healthy "safe" profit for a long time as I suggested.
"ZX would have maybe gotten at least 3 games when all the passionate Mega Man staff were given all the chances in the world back then..."
Here I really have to disagree again. Once again citing Mega Man 2's development. The people who worked on Mega Man 1 basically having to put their own time into making a sequel does not suggest that they were "given" anything as far as chances are concerned. They had to earn it just like everyone else, and the consistent profitability lead to Capcom making more.
Why do you think they were "given all the chances in the world back then?" You think Capcom for whatever reason just happened to decide that Mega Man deserves all these chances despite not selling that no other series or other company would give to franchises? It doesn't make any sense unless they were selling decently as I've been saying.
Continued:
Delete"Zero on the other hand on top of being outsourced, it just about did alright."
I need a source on this. If you Google search Capcom's annual earnings report from 2005 it makes note of Mega Man Zero 3 having "solid sales." They didn't pull punches either as in the same report they follow it up by saying:
“ 'Resident Evil Outbreak File 2' and 'Devil May Cry 3' (for PlayStation2) struggled, and “Viewtiful
Joe 2” (for PlayStation2 and Nintendo GameCube) also grew on a weak note. "
That's the sort of thing I'm talking about. Mega Man Zero was cheaper to make as you said, but it also got solid sales, leading to good profitability to help prop up their reports like this when other titles, like the ones listed, struggled.
I understand potential growth is important, but that's kind of a key point I've been trying to make. Mega Man hasn't been given much opportunity to experience larger potential growth because their titles were made to be smaller, more inexpensive titles. Speaking generally of course.
Mega Man 9 is a prime example of that. Yes it was a small scale game, but it sold beyond their expectations. That would have been a great time to try and push for something bigger (maybe make something like Mega Man 11 then instead of waiting till now) and instead they just pushed out another quick little game on the same scale with Mega Man 10 without any real attempt at growth.
" Those franchises basically skipped 6th gen while Capcom was pumping out 6th gen quality X games and a ton of handheld games at the time..."
That's my point though. Those franchises were absent because they didn't sell like Mega Man. I also think lack of quality control on Capcom's part hurt the X series console sales near the end of that generation as well, but that's another story.
"I don't particularly think those two games were massive investments (in terms of investing in the franchises)..." I think that's fair to an extent, barring the Bionic Commando console game which I believe was at least partially responsible for a studio closing down from its performance relative to its costs, but I also think it's fair to say they were bigger investments than the Mega Man titles at the time.
You can say they were giving them a chance to get into the 7th gen, but when Mega Man was just coming off of the success of the Battle Network and Zero series, I don't see why it couldn't have been given a bigger chance than it got as well.
Thank you for the links on Street Fighter and Final Fight. I'll check that out. You can actually find a bit on the Mega Man re-print somewhere on this site I believe, but if you don't want a source for it, that's fine.
I'm happy to keep discussing this as well, though I'm not sure where else to take a conversation like this.
What's with the Cartridge + Download Code thing? It kinda kills it a little for me. Like, why?
ReplyDeleteProbably has to do with Nintendo. Switch cards are available in 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB and 32GB sizes. It costs Nintendo a lot more to produce the higher capacity cards, and they probably push this cost on the developers who want to publish on Switch.
DeleteActually this isn't the problem. The Japanese version is going to get retail release for both collections
DeleteThe carts Nintendo uses are really biting them in the ass.
ReplyDeleteYep, pretty much.
DeleteNo, in Japan there are cartridges for both collections.
DeleteAnd Legacy Collection 1+2 isn't even 4GB, the smallest Switch cart size.
I'm quite interested in how they pulled off that "X Challenge" mode. It looks roughly on-par with any number of fan games and ROM hacks. Not a big fan of the clashing sprite styles, but if the gameplay is there, I can't really complain. At least, it's something new. Even if it looks a bit silly.
ReplyDeleteThough, I'm very-much more interested in the new armor X is wearing, there. It doesn't look like the new Mega Missions Energen Armor… and, in fact, doesn't look like any armor I've ever seen. Hm…
its the ultimate armor. color tinted.
DeleteAre you being sarcastic? If not, itsitpossible you just didnt notice, but that's the ultimate armor with a white recolor.
DeleteI actually wasn't being sarcastic. I genuinely didn't recognize that armor as the Ultimate Armor. I also can't think of a single time when X has ever had that color scheme. So, I'm still inclined to think that might be a "new" set of armor.
DeleteThis is Capcom, we're talking about; the kings of sprite reuse.
They've actually split the collections in 4 games each. The absolute madmen.
ReplyDeleteWhat a shame that the updated version of X8 got the short end of the stick by being part of the extremely weak half of the series. I doubt many of the people who haven't played X8 will feel encouraged to pay for a collection that is half genuinely terrible games just to try it.
It's not that bad stop over exaggerating. Extremely weak is reserved for games like Mega Man Battle Chip Challenge were there is less gameplay than tossing rocks into the river.
DeleteFor me X5 is a pretty solid game too, I like it more than 8. But yeah, 6 is lame and 7 is pure garbage :/
Deletepeople who have not played thoses games/ not know the X-series have no idea that thoses games are "terrible", and i think the reason why capcom is making theses collection is in large part to give people a occasion to discover the serie, anyway.
DeleteAlso, X 5 was great. X6, and X7 even more so, where far from as good as the others X-games, but they where not "pure garbage".
@Mark Havick: Battle Chip Challenge perhaps sucked as a GBA main series game but I'd give anything for a HD revamp for Mobile Devices. Times have changed and many mobile games feature Auto Play for grinding materials. Hell, I have it emulated on my phone right now even. It's a fun game if you don't expect the main series gameplay from it.
DeleteIt's no secret, whatsoever, that the current state of gamers is corrupted by this immature, irrational bandwagon mindset of negative criticism. Throwing things around like "pure garbage", "utter trash", "absolutely terrible" is just blatant exaggeration.
DeleteI played and enjoyed every Mega Man X game, each in their own way. Every time I see footage or think of X5 through X8 I don't instinctively roll my eyes or gag at their very mention. I think of the fun, memorable times I had with each one upon their release. I guess I'm such a die hard Mega Man fan through and through that I have no time to be negative. My time will be spent replaying these classics on a fresh new medium.
It's okay, MegaMac, it's just a budget re-release of these games. No need to bust out the Miss Universe award acceptance speeches over it.
DeleteI actually don’t think X5 is that great & never was for me when it came out. Alia alone ruins that games flow for me.
DeleteAlso, a nitpick is the ducking too. No need for that. It’s only in X5-X7 then absent. What if X5 did end up being the intended end? That would make it the only game where you duck until the human forms in ZX. That’s just stupid.
The U-555 sub is annoying too. Blaze Heatnix Ouroboros Snakes level of stupid. Not really hard at all, just way too time consuming.
Yea, X5 would be ALOT more fun if Alia would shut the hell up.
DeleteI think X5 and X8 are good. X6 and X7, however, are definitely trash in my eyes (I didn't even realize how bad X6 was until I tried replaying it a year or two ago). Having them all as part of a single collection is fine, as you take the good with the bad. Buying the second collection separately, on the other hand, seems like a bad time.
DeleteI'm happy to buy the bundle for Xbox and Switch. But it's an odd choice to split them up if they will release at the same time. I wonder why they decided to do this? I'm not complaining, I am genuinely curious.
ReplyDeletei believe its a move to give people options,
DeleteThe general gaming public would gravitate to MMXLC for that sweet SNES nostalgia only for 20 bucks, and the more hardcore fans are more willing to actually purchase the later titles MMXLC2 for that extra 20.
finally a release date.
ReplyDeletenew music is welcome. hope its in game just for something new.
i guess no translation fixes?
The one disc dream is dead!
ReplyDeletei think its worth getting the physical collections separated just for better box art work.
ReplyDeleteundecided but im getting it one way or the other.
I don't know. The screen scaling seems gimped again, just like Legacy Collection 2. The energy bars are a dead giveaway with the way the pixels are for each peg, and even the background for X4's energy bar.
ReplyDeleteLately, I've been using an Analogue Super Nt. It has to be better than the emulation style of this release. If you wanted something extra like arranged music. You could always get an SD2SNES and use the MSU-1 chip on it. But I suppose it's nice if you wanted a different means to play these or if you wanted to play them on a Switch. I don't think this would be the best experience though by any means.
Ouch, great point about the scaling. There's really no excuse for not having proper 1:1 PAR, 4:3, and even widescreen stretch. And of course X7 and X8 should have a proper widescreen mode, but they may not since it isn't shown in the trailer, which is really sloppy too. They either port or emulate 8 games, deal with all the issues that might pop up and need fixed, add an actually interesting challenge mode, add a cruddy upscaling filter almost no one will use, and they mean to tell us decent video scaling options are too difficult to add? Lol
DeleteFor me, not having the option for 1:1 PAR output @ 4x scale using nearest neighbor for X1-X6 (with borders or just black bars, either, I don't care) is a major turn off and inexcusable, but it looks like even those who prefer 4:3 are screwed. Really dumb on their part, I have to say.
So on the Switch we're putting the smallest files on the cartridge and relegating the larger ones to download only....that's....cool. I know they're still small files by today's standards but still, wasted space is wasted space.
ReplyDeleteYup. I just can't believe they're doing it again.
DeleteThey're doing this because Capcom's games sells well
Deletei'm getting thoses on ps4, and on switch as a gift for a friend.
ReplyDeleteSo much yes.
ReplyDeleteI wish that the bundle had a slight discount (at least 35 for buying both), but at least I'm buying it on Steam so I don't need to worry about the disks or cartridges.
If anyome is interested, from what i read on CapcomFrance site, the games will be availiable in france the 24 of July, digitally. don't know if it's the same for the rest of Europe.
ReplyDeleteDouble-dipping on both the Switch and PS4 versions
ReplyDeletefucking finally
ReplyDeleteI have PS4, PS3 and Nintendo Switch. Since, I will pass for Nintendo Switch and get the PS4 version instead because PS4 will have discs for both. Nintendo Switch will have one cart and one digital download. Nah. PS4 version for me.
ReplyDeleteI'll get both digitally on Switch. Im feel sorry for physical Switch owners again though. Also, there are people who keep saying X Legacy 2 will sell way less than the first one because simply the entries in the former aren't good. I understand the infamy regarding X6 and X7, but there are people who actually enjoyed X5 and especially X8. The latter one I thought it was a very solid entry and it redeemed the series. People really should give MMX8 a second chance, it deserves it.
ReplyDeleteThe Challenge Mode has me really curious. I think it's safe to assume X4-X6 are actually ports as they're obviously being used as the base for this mode. (The other scenario being that this is completely custom but I cannot imagine Capcom doing anything like that just for some challenge mode extra.) (X7/X8 were obviously going to be ports too, but that's mostly irrelevant.) Without seeing more footage, it's hard to say what this means for X1-X3 though. Perhaps Chill Penguin and other bosses are simply loosely recreated based on their original mechanics for use in Challenge Mode. Or perhaps X1-X3 are ports and the boss AI is more faithfully transferred to Challenge Mode.
ReplyDeleteAnd what of X7-X8? Are they just not represented? Will it be X7/X8 plus a sprite pasted on a billboard hopping around and fighting you, like the secret Cutman fight? And what if they have both collection? Will we be able to unlock more challenges? I mean, you gotta have Bubble Crab and Tidal Makkoeen in a boss fight together. Or for that matter, will there be X1-3 mashups? Gravity Beetle and Boomer Kuwanger would be awesome given they're brothers, but if the mode is based on the X4-X6 engine and/or X1-X3 aren't ports, that's kind of awkward. Also, will we be able to use Zero in this mode?
I don't know, I'm just dumping my random thoughts. Perhaps I'm also a bit biased because I really am hoping for all of X1-X6 to be ported rather than emulated.
If it's anything like previous challenge modes, I bet there will be one for each playable character.
DeleteI would assume the pairings will be done as technically possible. X7 being the real pickle, here.
I could see X8 3D renders being lifted, flattened and added to the mode. But X7's bosses just don't jive, and they wouldn't work well with each other in most cases.
It would be cool if they did something really neat and sprite-ed the X7/8 bosses. That would be very very cool. But dollars to donuts that's not what they are doing.
In a way, I can't see the lack of X7 in the challenge mode as a bad thing. It eliminates "BURN! BURN! BURN TO THE GROUND! BURN TO THE GROUND! BURN! BURN! BURN! BURN TO THE GROUND!"
Hopefully they leave that out anyway if it IS in challenge mode.
Now I got a few big questions.
ReplyDelete1. Can you switch between PSX and SNES versions of X3 or at least pick the OST?
2. Can you play the Japanese or English versions of any game through the options ala Legacy Collection 2?
3. Will games like X5-X8 go unchanged? Examples not limited to:
- X5-X8 using licensed Japanese songs in the JPN version
- X6 having Japanese VOs and music in the English version
- X6 having wrong input commands for Zero's moves
- Password system in X1-X3 accepting actual passwords
Dual Audio?
ReplyDeleteWhat are the chances the load times in X7 were cut down? Or that Alia's explanation of the parts system only happens once? I would say that 60% of the issues with X7 could be fixed by cleaning up the presentation a bit. It would still be a mess, but not a hot mess.
ReplyDeleteAnd either changing or removing the dub altogether. It hurts my ears.
DeleteLoad times will surely be much better. They even are on the original Korean X7 PC version. But the menus were still dreadfully slow. It's like someone had a "dramatic fade in/out" obsession or something and slapped it on everything they could for X7. I think they could speed up a lot of the gameplay as well and it would be really beneficial, but hopefully the menu stuff is at least fixed. Actually, hopefully X5 and up all have these kinds of stupid menu/dialogue/unskippable-stuff issues fixed.
DeleteWhat is this? They put 4 games into each collection and instead of putting Command Mission and the Xtreme games they put merch pictures? WHY!? I don't want to see keychains or t-shirts, i want to play more games!!
ReplyDeleteWould it kill them if they gave us a Real Collection not just a re-releaslsed what I already have on a PS2.
ReplyDeleteA Real X Collection
-All 8 Games in their orignal release with the ability to change to HD Mode
-Both Gameboy Games
-Mission
-Ability to play the PSP Game
- Plus all the add on stuff they given with this
That is a Real Collection.
Why I oped out of MM Legacy was because I already had all 6 games on 1 system (Wii U) + I have 7 and I have 8-9-10 all on my PS3
Only reason I am getting this is because my PS2 broke.
What's stopping you from getting another ps2? Their $30-$50 these days.
DeleteThis is such a scam. Capcom should be ashamed of themselves.
ReplyDeleteFunny, because the original Legacy Collections were "scams" by Capcom but now we're looking at a MM11.
DeleteWe're looking at MM11 after nearly a decade of merchandise sales, fan projects, an appearance in Smash Bros, and plenty of other things.
DeleteI don't think the sales of the original Legacy Collections were what pushed them to make another one.
game sales are absolutely a factor.
Deletecapcom has even said as much when looking at interest in x9...
seriously.
I know people at Capcom, and I can confirm the amazing sales of Mega Man Legacy Collection 1 were a MAJOR ignition for both MM11 AND MMLC2. I am 100% certain the sales of MMXLC will be the final factor in determining a new X game. They want to see if demand is still there.
DeleteYou can't seriously expect people to take "I know people at Capcom" seriously, can you?
DeleteThat's basically the same as "my uncle works at Nintendo."
If you've got some kind of proof for your claims I'd be happy to hear you out, but I need more to go on.
I knew it was a long shot but I was hoping for command mission to be on the collection, doubtful but maybe they will do a legends collection with command mission on it... lol yeah I know it won't happen
ReplyDeleteSo what I'm really curious about (and anyone feel free to chime in! :D )
ReplyDeleteIs X7 used a 3D playing field and I think some of the bosses of not all make use of that playing field it's been a long time... how can they use that in the boss challenge mode if everyone else is stuck to a side scrolling field