What Happened to the 'Mega Man' Series?

With its long history and many games, the Mega Man series may at first appear to be a wildly successful franchise up there with Mario and Sonic. However, despite its recognition, the Mega Man series only has a few games that sold more than one million copies worldwide. Even the best-selling Mega Man game Mega Man 2 sold only 1.5 million copies worldwide. This fact made me wonder how the Mega Man series could be so well known but rarely be the success one would expect from a long-running franchise.

Confused Identity

Ever since the release of Mega Man X on the Super Nintendo, it seemed inevitable that the X series would take on the mantle of the Mega Man series. However, Mega Man 7's release on the Super Nintendo questioned whether the classic or X series was the main one. Unlike the Mario series, the naming conventions of Mega Man games are less descriptive because they don't have a moniker like "Super Mario" that acts as an identifier for the mainline titles. This lack of clear messaging affected Mega Man Legends because even though it represented the Mega Man series' jump to 3D with the classic and X series still active, it was more like a spin-off than a mainline title. With the confused identity of the Mega Man series, it's unsurprising that the only iteration of the franchise Capcom feels confident returning to is the classic series that started it all.

Going Portable

One sentiment expressed about the Mega Man series in the early to mid-2000s was that there wasn't anything new for fans of side-scrolling platformers. Excluding the poorly received Mega Man Network Transmission, the Mega Man series didn't get any new side-scrolling platformers on consoles. At that time, the X series was experimenting with a bunch of different genres like third-person action (Mega Man X7), turn-based RPG (Mega Man X: Command Mission), and side-scrolling shooter (Mega Man X8). However, there was no shortage of new side-scrolling platformers on portable systems with games like Mega Man Zero, Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X, and Mega Man Powered Up. Unfortunately, these handheld Mega Man games weren't successful because fans of the side-scrolling platformers skew older, favoring consoles.

Too Many Games

Something you may have noticed about the Mega Man commercials in this post is how they all feature multiple games. The prolific nature of the Mega Man franchise isn't necessarily a negative for the series, but too many games released in the same year can spread a franchise's fans too thin. The most egregious year was 2004, which saw the release of five Mega Man games in Japan and four in North America. An even worse issue was how the sameness of each sub-series burned out many consumers and resulted in bad reviews from critics. Craig Harris explains this issue in his IGN review of Mega Man Battle Network 4 "The Battle Network series definitely has its fanbase, but in terms of really anticipating the next game in the series, that's not going to happen until Capcom offers something decidedly new and unique for the characters and universe."

The situation didn't improve, with many canceled Mega Man games following the departure of series producer Keiji Inafune in 2010. With the failure of Keiji Inafune's spiritual successor, Mighty No. 9, the situation was bleak for Mega Man fans. However, with the recent success of Mega Man Legacy Collection and Mega Man 11, both managing to sell over one million copies, the blue bomber is due for a comeback. While the exit of Mega Man 11 producer Kazuhiro Tsuchiya from Capcom doesn't bode well for future Mega Man games (Rockman Taisen), the positive results of the Capcom Super Elections are a point in the series' favor.

Update: The latest entry in the Mega Man series, Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection, has sold 1.60 million copies worldwide.