Capcom announced today through its financial results that the Mega Man series has sold a total of 43 million units as of March 31, 2025. The previously reported number, back in July 2024, was 42 million.
Despite the fact that the last game released was Mega Man XDIVE Offline in August 2023 for PC and mobile devices, the franchise continues to grow thanks to the most recent collection, Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection, and the ongoing sales of Mega Man 11 and other Legacy Collections.
On the horizon, while we wait for a new game to be announced, we can look forward to UDON's Mega Man Timelines comic book series.
Now that's a milestone! Also, I can't wait to check out the new comic book series.
ReplyDeleteA functionally dead series selling a million units when the last mainline entry came out nearly a decade ago and with nothing to look forward to on the horizon should be a sign that there's potential for more sales if new games came out on a reasonable basis and were given an actual budget and marketing push, but it seems like the only ones who don't understand that are Capcom.
ReplyDeleteThat's not a problem exclusive to Mega Man either, just look at other, even more dead IPs like Darkstalkers that continue to sell well despite not even the slightest hint of a proper revival and their last entries coming out before some modern gamers were even born. Capcom hoards all these promising franchises but refuses to do anything with them other than re-release the old entries over and over again (like Darkstalkers) or in some extreme cases, not even do that and instead just throw in the occasional crossover costume or background reference (like most of Clover's work, or Maximo).
I suppose it’s somewhat sobering to see that, of the five series listed, Mega Man *technically* has the second most recent release (though Street Fighter 6 has had content updates since). Ignoring of course that XDO is already a re-release of a third party game built off of decade-old assets.
ReplyDeleteLMAO wait for a new game. What color dragon do you want while you're at it?
ReplyDelete"the franchise continues to grow"
ReplyDeleteNo it's not unless we see new games and more often and legit sequels. But I guess they think the series is a flop. This post acts all excited and hyped, but for what? Doesn't affect me either way unless we see new games. It's really weird not to capitalize on the supposed popularity with new games if in fact it is that popular still as they claim. I don't care about toys or collectables at all. Without games, it may as well be dead. It's bizarre. Actions speak louder than words, and a new game often would be proof.
Well thats some good news
ReplyDeleteI took a survey from capcom and no news of a new mega man game yet.
ReplyDeleteyipeee! Now please give a lil love back capcom lol T_T
ReplyDeleteI just can't get excited about this. I mean good for them, but at the end of the day, does it mean anything tangible?
ReplyDeleteExactly. Call me a cynic, but this just feels like more reason for Capcom *not* to put effort back in. Don’t fix what ain’t broken, eh?
DeleteGranted, Capcom and the actual devs have been at odds since they got sales figures for Rockman 1.
Can't say this means the series continues to grow. The Collections are nice and all but if a video game franchise doesn't have any new content it's basically dead. We've only had one new Mega Man game in the last decade in Mega Man 11 then nothing ever since.
ReplyDeleteThe series is in limbo right now with no clear direction and hasn't had a steady stream of new games in years.
Mega Man X DiVE launched in 2020, and Capcom considers X DiVE Offline, released in 2023, as the "latest entry" in the series. By their definition of what constitutes a "new game," the gap between releases is fairly typical.
DeleteA truly new game becomes more viable as the existing catalog of Mega Man titles begins to taper off. At that point, releasing a new title becomes more of a necessity—one that can eventually join the back catalog itself.
See, that last point seems like part of the “issue” to me. With the prevalence of online store fronts and much longer console generations (and more focus on backwards compatibility anyway), games have a much longer practical lifespan for the companies. Capcom is technically selling a lot of Mega Man games now (I wanna say more than they ever had at one time?), and it’s just from downloading files from a server.
DeleteAnd at a discount of often half off or more.
DeleteSee, the "Capcom considers X DiVE Offline the latest entry" point seems more like an excuse to claim that the series is still regularly getting new games despite the reality that Offline is just a years-old gacha game with the online requirement removed, Mega Man 11 came out nearly 8 years ago, and Taisen is in a Schrodinger's Cat state of both existence and nonexistence until Capcom finally breaks their silence about it.
DeleteI doubt you'd see them say the same thing about, say, a hypothetical long gap between Resident Evil or Monster Hunter releases. By that same logic, there never was a drought of Mega Man games in the 2010's, because the series was seeing consistent mobile games made and digital re-releases of the older titles, and if we didn't accept that kind of reasoning back then, why should we accept it now?
And that last point also seems to be a reasoning that exclusively applies to Mega Man, as they never waited for sales to taper off for their big three IPs before putting a new one into production. And with how often Mega Man collections go on sale for massive discounts, it's a convenient excuse to keep refusing to make a new mainline game because, as Jark stated, the fact that most people buy games digitally now means that there's no longer a limited shelf life for any of their games, and as such there's no endpoint to the games selling.
Something HAS to give on Capcom's end if they truly want this fanbase to believe that Mega Man is still a valued franchise beyond its potential for merchandise and retro game compilations, since in the end they're the ones who ultimately decide whether the franchise lives or dies.