During the Q&A session at the 46th Ordinary General Meeting of Shareholders, Capcom reiterated that Mega Man remains an important part of its portfolio. As with a similar statement made in 2024, the company confirmed that while no new announcements can be made at this time, the series continues to be a key element of its global strategy.
The company also highlighted the growing international demand for Mega Man merchandise and plans to continue expanding this business in the future.
Q． Please tell me about your plans for the Mega Man series.
A． The Mega Man series is one of our most important IPs, and we are continuously considering ways to develop it further. However, we do not have any additional information we can share at this time.
Q． What are your expectations regarding revenue contributions of merchandise sales from the Mega Man series?
A． While we do not disclose individual sales figures by IP, we receive a particularly high volume of inquiries about the Mega Man series from overseas markets. We will continue to focus on expanding this business further.
Without a doubt, this is a carefully worded PR response—exactly what you’d expect from a shareholders' meeting. Still, it's reassuring to see that the IP is strong in terms of merchandising, even in the absence of new games. It’s also worth noting that shareholders took the initiative to ask about the series at all, which doesn’t happen often when it comes to Mega Man.
Source: Capcom Investor Relations
Hah! They literally said “damn y'all Americans always whining about Mega Man.”
ReplyDeleteI’m reminded of when an F-Zero fan bought thousands of dollars worth of shares just to ask about F-Zero at a Nintendo shareholder meeting. At least these answers about Mega Man are more optimistic than the F-Zero answer.
"The Mega Man series is one of our most important IPs, and we are continuously considering ways to develop it further. However, we do not have any additional information we can share at this time."
ReplyDeleteSo, in other words, they still aren't doing anything with the series. Got it.
As long as they aren't making any new "games", they aren't screwing it up any more than they already have. Which is fine with me.
ReplyDeleteAll good things and all that.
To be honest, I’d rather see the franchise dead than have it tarnished by a bad developer who would turn the series into something terrible. If Capcom can give me compilations so I can play all the Rockman games on my Switch, I’ll be satisfied.
ReplyDelete"We know how important Mega Man is to all of you... and we don't care.
ReplyDelete...
I-I mean it's important to all of us too. One of our most important IPs! Now please shut up. Stop asking us about that dead series, we have more Monster Hunters to make."
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DeleteSame thing they said last year if I'm not mistaken
ReplyDeleteAnd the same thing we'll hear next year
I like to say that Capcom's priority list goes a little bit like this:
Delete1. Resident Evil
2. Monster Hunter
3. Street Fighter
4. Devil May Cry
5 - 10 : Other lesser franchises, couple of side games and new projects.
11. An eternal ABYSS of forgotten and ignored souls in Limbo.
12. Megaman
I don't believe a single word that was said. I'm not going to hold my breath.
ReplyDeleteCapcom is just rage baiting us with these headlines at this point.
DeleteIt has become a meme/drama company almost 20 years ago. Just look at the latest "harassment". They were going to have a talk session about the difficulties encountered with the pc version of Monster Hunter Wilds, and still encountering optimizing the game HOWEVER how can they have the galls to have such a talk when the game is STILL BROKEN. For some the game was broken from the get go, then they updated it which did optimize or fix it for some, but for others it completely broke it. The session was supposed to take place in Japan, oh you know, how harassing the Japanese can be /s. And, if it was going to be streamed on YouTube they can always disable the chat like they already do with the COMMENTS SECTION.
DeleteIt's like someone wrote on YouTube. They're blaming the consumers so they don't have to face the reality of their own ineptitude. Why is a company relying on concern trolling? What a complete embarrassment, they should be utterly ashamed of themselves.
DeleteYeah. It doesn’t excuse poor behavior, but companies and even professionals have way thicker skin than they’re given credit for. It could’ve just been, like, someone involved forgot they had a doctor’s appointment the day of. But no, we’ve abandoned Occam’s razor for flashy thumbnails.
DeleteAfter reading all seven comments, i have to say as a mega man fan i agree.
ReplyDeleteThere has been significant signs of life in the franchise. A small pulse, but it's there. Signs are pointing to a release announcement in the next year. Mark my words.
ReplyDeleteIt does seem like licensing ventures are picking up, for what that’s worth. Secret Level, comics are back, more substantial figures…
DeleteBut my inner nihilist thinks it might just be the movie starting to finally take shape. Netflix exclusive bay bee!
they're looking to have their own sonic movies
DeleteHasn't there been a similarly cryptic comment around Q1 of 2024?
DeleteJudging by the comments, how are we so awful at discerning patterns?
ReplyDelete"Capcom Once Again Reaffirms Mega Man’s Importance at Shareholder Meeting"
ReplyDeleteWell actions do speak louder than words. Good proof of its importance is to make sequels, but lately they do anything to avoid that, wasting too much time on non-game items, and worse, gacha if a game is done.
Q What are your expectations regarding revenue contributions of merchandise sales from the Mega Man series?
ReplyDeleteA While we do not disclose individual sales figures by IP, we receive a particularly high volume of inquiries about the Mega Man series from overseas markets. We will continue to focus on expanding this business further.
To be fair the answer says "sales figures" it could be they mean they don't disclose videogame sales figures, not merchandise sales figures, but considering the topic it does indicate merchandise so expect more of it.
2023
Q Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection was released in April and has surpassed 1 million units in sales, contributing to existing IP utilization and user expansion. What are your plans for the Mega Man series?
A …Mega Man is one of Capcom’s historic IPs and is loved by fans...We are considering how to approach the production of new entries in the series...
2024
Q Please tell me what plans you have for the Mega Man series.
A Mega Man is one of our highly-valued IPs and we are considering how to create games for it
on an ongoing basis.
2025
Q Please tell me about your plans for the Mega Man series.
A The Mega Man series is one of our most important IPs, and we are continuously considering ways to develop it further...
The ellipsis mean the filler has been taken out.
The same response three years in a row. Wew lad.
Also, that "we are continuously considering ways to develop it further," sounds like they are constantly coming with an idea or a few ideas, then they change their minds and start completely anew. Three months from now, it'll be 7 years since 11, something to consider.
Thank you for putting in the effort to find previous historical comments for accuracy.
DeleteAnything but a new game. We're coming up on the same gap between Mega Man 10 and 11 without anything to show for it. At least the model kits are cool. Can't wait to buy 7 more versions of X and Zero. At least Sigma is happening.
ReplyDeleteOh come on everybody. Capcom is a publicly traded company and has to please shareholders with their decisions. Look at the game sales capcom had. Megaman is nowhere near Resident Evil, Street Fighter or Monster Hunter. Also, with Pragmate they r trying to establish a new IP. All that takes time and effort and there probably arent enough staff to create a new Megaman game... especially not if it just doesnt bring in the money other games do.
ReplyDeleteThat’s exactly why I have more faith in fan games than official at this point. Fans do it because of love, because they have a story they want to tell, because they wanna *make a damn game.* Capcom just does it when they see dollar signs (yen signs?). Why do you think every game post 11 is either a collection or port? Fan games have their problems, especially 20XX games which can be too close and overly reverent of the NES games, but I’d still take them over Capcom.
DeleteAnd yet the shareholders continue to ask about it. The shareholders are not stupid. They know that Megaman is one of Capcom's most important historical ips. it may not be their biggest seller, but it is still a core part of Capcom's identity. And as such they can very much see an underutilized ip. Now to be fair, as far as a lot of shareholders are concerned, making money off of an IP is not just about games, but about everything, so merch is just as good to their eyes. But Capcom being a videogame company, and not just a merchandising company, this is why it keeps coming up year after year.
Delete"you are a videogame company."
"yes."
"And Megaman is an important part of your historical identity."
"yes."
"and the series most recent entries have done very well, as has the merchandising efforts."
"yes."
"So what are you doing with this IP to take advantage of that clear demand that could grow the brand and IP value?"
"more merchandise. have you seen these new statues..."
@Jark Spore
DeleteDefinetly. Fan games are the way to go. Mega Man X Corrupted and Reminiscence look soooo good. Then we have Open Net Battle ...which is just a fully user controlled engine. Fans deliver!
Megaman X Corrupted is not a game at this point. It might as well be just animations. To be a game it has to actually come out And that is *never* coming out.
Deletevery important for crossovers in mobile games, merch and street fighter costumes.
ReplyDeleteTroll boat and lure.
ReplyDeleteHow many times do you need to hear the samething to measure your relevance?
ReplyDeleteFor once, I agree with the neigh-sayers. It was nice when Capcom said it the first two times, but actions speak louder than words. I can’t take waiting anymore so I’ve given up wanting things that don’t exist yet (If at all).
Delete@Momoyoy The thing is that we're treating this like Capcom is bluffing. This is a snippet of a *shareholder meeting*. Are we seriously still expecting Capcom to drop hot new game news to their shareholders? I mean, props to the guy keeping the spirit alive and I see it as a good sign that unlike previous years, they are at least making a note of the volume of inquiries coming from "overseas markets".
DeleteCapcom's long-term strategy is built upon broadening exposure to brands via the very moves that we've been seeing from them over the past decade: Merchandising, crossovers, and collaborations. What are the naysayers really accomplishing when something as benign as a Mega Man costume in a Capcom game is worthy of attacking the company over? Expectations have gone so far off the deep end that Capcom can't even utter the words "Mega Man" without taking flak for it.
I think it’s just a direct comparison to how the series was presented in the past. Sure, the 2000’s had its fair share of crossovers and collections, but new games too. Even whole new series! The 2020’s though? I know it’s not a fair comparison, but I don’t think it’s entirely unreasonable either. I see the logic.
DeleteBesides, shareholder meetings and quarterly reports are some of the most uninteresting and noncommittal collections of sentences you could ever read. Reading a business say “yes, we will still try to make money” is like seeing a pixel in a video game.
because we know how japanese companies work. there's a lot of stupid cultural nonsense.
DeleteReminder that it took so long for MM11 to even become a thing simply because nobody wanted to be the one to speak up and propose a new Megaman game following Inafune's departure.
I imagine right now it's in a similar state.
@Jark Spore That's precisely why there's no point getting outraged to the extent that we are. This isn't some random yearly video game press event. It is just a corporate meeting. There will not be (and have not been) any new game announcements made at these kinds of meetings.
Delete@Flame That's assuming that leadership is the only issue at play. Capcom very clearly wants to make a new Mega Man game, but they also want to justify it under their long term strategy, and I've already said what that includes. Suffice it to say, I don't think being hostile towards what we are getting is really doing anything for confidence in the IP for anything. That doesn't mean we have to totally fall in line and hold the brand on our collective financial shoulders, just maybe show some restraint on the negativity.
Eh, it’s more “death by a thousand cuts,” “straw that broke the camel’s back,” et cetera. The contents of *this* specific update are irrelevant. It could be a wishy-washy shareholder answer, it could be Mega Man in Fortnite, it could be layoffs and budget cuts to the “Mega Man team.” It all blends into the same miasma of “Capcom isn’t giving Mega Man the attention it deserves, or at least as much as their other big series.”
DeleteI’m honestly on the side of the more positive-onlookers here. For a *shareholder meeting,* it’s relatively promising. And if it isn’t? Well, they technically never promised anything.
We can't know exactly how well Mega Man is doing in relation to other Capcom IPs simply because we don't have access to key sales data for the various efforts. We do have published fragments of this data, enough to make some key takeaways. Simply put: Mega Man is nowhere near as significant as we seem to think it is.
DeleteLet's take Mega Man 11. The estimate for it's launch week is 160,000-some units, and at last update from December 2024 it current sits at around 2 million units sold globally. A number that took 7 years to reach. Let's compare that with Street Fighter VI, which hit an estimated 1 million in it's first week of release in June of 2023. Where is it at now? Reports from June 2025 say that it's hit 5 million, so that would be in the span of two years. Similar goes for Capcom's other IPs. Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, even Devil May Cry are all trouncing Mega Man in terms of sales performance overall.
I would say we don't know what all Capcom is taking stock of, but just this week Capcom axed a Monster Hunter Wilds presentation over harassment. So if they're taking stock of the antagonism, then it's even worse for us as fans because we're actively fighting the strategy meant to save the brand long-term, and potentially bring back the whole game a year thing we want.
Heh, you don’t need to tell *me* a big Mega Man push wouldn’t make financial sense for Capcom. :p I realize “better sales than ever” isn’t enough, especially if a Street Fight does so much better. And budget logistics just aren’t there anymore for Mega Man’s range. Even if Mega Man never seemed “high budget” to me, besides some of Generation 4 and *early* Generation 5.
DeleteIDK much about this MonHun drama, but I’d like to think we’re not sending death threats… Mostly just because what’s happening with Mega Man isn’t so… sensational? We’re not a wide range of people in a booming community mad their $70 game doesn’t work, we’re just tired oldheads hoping to see something interesting, or disappointed when we don’t.
Yuh know, maybe the movie *is* the exact shot in the arm the series needs. Especially if it causes an uproar like the Sonic movie trailer. I 100% believe the first trailer + Paramount’s response made Movie 1 do way better. And with that series’ success, SEGA’s back to yearly releases, not every 4 years with collabs and ports filling the gaps. Jada and Udon et all are neat, but they’re not the spark to start a wildfire.
Worth noting that part of the the positive reception of the Sonic movie was that the original design was thrown out. It also happened that the one given the role of creating the new design was someone who was already well-versed with Sonic's character design.
DeleteI don't see the same thing happening for Mega Man, mostly because Capcom likely will either not make the same mistake to begin with or won't bother pulling for any corrections.
Well, SEGA had little to do with anything after the license was sold. I assume it’s the same with Capcom for this project. Dare I say, the design sensibilities from Secret Level were already pretty close to the Trailer 1 design.
DeleteBut you might be right. While I saw an interesting case of consumer psychology and guerrilla marketing with Sonic 1, it doesn’t seem like something anyone wants to replicate. Though nothing’s stopping them from recruiting a Karakato or UMX for a hypothetical Mega Man redesign.
Waiting decades for a game like MegaMan especially because the formula is so simplistic compared to other games is beyond several limits a person should have where loyalty is concerned. And even "Mario" has greater level variety with multiple worlds and levels in said worlds where as MegaMan or X series has 8 + give or take 4ish others for end game levels and Mario has power ups etc what I'm getting at is that it's harder to produce a Mario game in 2d formula than MegaMan and that IP pushes out games easily while excuses can be made its not "appropriate" to be starved as a supporter much like a relationship with no verbal contact for 10 years any therapist would recommend you move on with you giving so much and receiving so little in return the fact that it's comparable to therapy fields should strike multitudes of cords especially because others can produce more with IPs that require more work you can say it's because it's limited people and not as much as Nintendo but I don't see street fighter slowing down as a single example? Love what you love but anything short of equal trade is you and others doing the heavy lifting with nothing in return. And it's been just that it's not "nay" saying it's common sense. Or I'd hope so by this point "shrug". Also Sonic takes more effort could go on but "shrug again"
DeleteAll we can say to statements like these is "Prove it."
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteIf they're not going to annouce a new mega man game like star force 4 or legends 3 or x9 i'l just move on.
Eh, I'll just keep on trucking and making weird fan art in the corner like during the last drought, with how expensive games are getting I couldn't play it if they announced one tomorrow anyway. There's have a handful of long abandoned series I hang onto so just knowing the blue boy is still hanging around in some form is reassuring at the least. Granted the constant reassurance can be a little grating on occasion.
ReplyDeleteWeird fan art? Like shitposts, or something else? :O
DeleteMostly talking about AUs & stuff lol
DeleteAh, okay. I used to do shitposty things.
DeleteAfter about 3 years of considerations, you'd think there'd be something to show for it. I'm surprised the investors that are asking these questions aren't pushing harder for information on actual progress at this point.
ReplyDelete"Ugh, they're still bothering us about megaman? Just tell the fanboys we told our shareholders that megaman is important again, that'll shut them up for a while longer... Sigh, how is that RE5 remake coming along btw? We need more Monster Hunter titles and additional Street Fighter 6 dlc, alright? We have a company to run here!"
ReplyDeleteThis proves my theory "Capcom is trying to erase Mega Man to make a new icon of it."
ReplyDeleteI like to hear about your theory.
DeleteAnything but a new game. Anything.
ReplyDeleteAs X said in X7, Talk is cheap. Prove it to me first.
ReplyDeleteI used to think Capcom still had reservations about the Megaman IP because of the hatred towards Inafune that almost made Capcom itself experience difficult times.
ReplyDeleteBut after some thought, it seems Capcom shouldn't have bothered with Keiji Inafune anymore. The Megaman IP is truly trapped in Capcom's grudge against him.
Another year, another non-committal reassurance that their mascot that hasn't got any meaningful new games since 2018 is still a major focus of Capcom.
ReplyDeleteI especially don't buy the "Mega Man is just too financially risky" reasoning now that we're getting new AAA Onimusha and Okami games, one of which is a series that's been dead for over 20 years and was never a major money maker to begin with, and the other which was such a notorious sales disappointment upon its original release in spite of universally glowing reviews that it led to the shuttering of its studio.
Don't get me wrong, I'm happy these new entries exist, but it strikes me as odd that a series so intrinsically tied to Capcom's history and image has never and at this point will never get the same treatment, especially now that we know that Capcom seemingly counts compilations and mobile games as an excuse to say "See? There's new Mega Man games coming out all the time! Just don't ask for a brand new, made-from-the-ground-up console game."
I've never seen a company have such a toxic relationship with their own mascot before, it'd be like if Disney refused to make anything new with Mickey Mouse for the better part of 20 years but still assured investors that he's still a central pillar of the company.
To be frank, I don’t think Mega Man ever was the Capcom mascot that people tend to think he is. At best, he was their Alex Kidd: a de facto series before something better came along. People just think he’s a main mascot because he’s a cute platformer boy, but usage is important too.
DeletePerhaps calling him the Alex Kidd of Capcom is too harsh… Maybe more like, something between Alex Kidd and Kirby? There’s history, and the series isn’t at its highest point, but it still gets vaguely frequent releases, and shows up a lot in ensemble projects. And most importantly: no one who knows those series and their companies would call them the core, modern flagship game of those companies.