• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Mighty No. 9 Officially delayed - No new date, "aiming for Q1 2016"

To be honest, you'd still be getting the whole package. You can even avoid playing the game until everything has been released, if that's what you'd like. I don't really see what your point is.
Edit: Sadly, in this day and age it's almost impossible to have a game that doesn't need a patch or some kind of digitally delivered content.
I just said it, I prefer to have as much of the game as posible on the disk so I'm glad that they are delaying the game and to me thats a good thing. I'm not saying that I wouldn't buy it if its not included in the game and released at a later time. And yes, it's sad about the patch/DLC thing and I think that I wouldn't have that much problems accepting the "new" ways games deliver their content if I went full digital but I'm still attached to the physical media to let it go just yet >_<.
 

otakukidd

Member
It's possible that one of the ports is fucked and now that they have a publisher their not allowed to release it staggered cause that would kill sales on the port that gets pushed. Something major happened cause they have shown a lot of the game. I wonder if they were denied cert and to fix it would take a really long time.
 

Holundrian

Unconfirmed Member
You know what would be amazing? If they'd decide to talk and tell us what's up instead of this vague nonsense. What exactly doesn't work etc.
Instead of leaving us dry and speculating.
 
It's possible that one of the ports is fucked and now that they have a publisher their not allowed to release it staggered cause that would kill sales on the port that gets pushed. Something major happened cause they have shown a lot of the game. I wonder if they were denied cert and to fix it would take a really long time.

That would also be my best guess since there are like 7 ports of the game. Must be a nightmare bug fixing for so many platforms.

Has Inti Creates even released a game with online gameplay before MN9?
 

Luq

Member
With each day my hype is decreasing and damn... It's nearly at 0 right now. Just give Azure Striker Gunvolt 2 already.
 

Alchemy

Member
I'm ok with delays, I backed the Double Fine Adventure and was extremely happy with what I got out of it. But being told the game was basically done in a kickstarter for another project, only commenting on the delay after that kickstarter failed despite the delay being leaked way in advanced, and the overall shadiness of the Red Ash kickstarter really soured me on Comcept and basically everything they're involved in.

At least the DFA kickstarter provided an amazing documentary and half a game to start.
 

Hatchtag

Banned
Are terrible new games better than (what will hopefully turn out to be) a really cool collection of classic games? I'd rather have Mega Man Legacy Collection than Sonic Boom or Mighty No. 9.

Sonic Colors/Generations/Unleashed day levels came out last gen. Sure, a lot of the Sonic games are ass, but the ones that are good are far better than the last decade or so of Mega Man games.
 

MegamanNG

Neo Member
I got an e-mail from Deep Silver saying about it and I knew this would happen. Guess I can now put my money towards something else.
 
The reason that the producer on MN9 first denied the rumors on the forums is because their team was still working towards a September 15/18 release date.

Then explain why Deep Silver sended notifications of the delay to stores as soon as July 22, looks like the game was already delayed before that producer had the chance to say anything to the moderator in the forum.
 
Sure, if you want to completely ignore all the context surrounding this delay.

1. Comcept keeps shouting from the rooftops that MN9 is basically done since January.
2. Red Ash Kickstarter very obviously becomes Comcept's main priority. Note that nobody asked them to prioritize a new project over MN9, they just did it on their own accord.
3. Strong rumors start to circulate that MN9 gets delayed
4. They denied the rumor last week, claimed the game was getting released in a month as scheduled
6. Radio silence on MN9, no follow-up questions answered about the delay rumors.
7. Red Ash crashes and burns, KS fails.
8. Oh so conveniently, MN9 is now delayed. No new date given.
9. Cherry on top: "We decided to wait because we were too busy with Red Ash". You know, that project nobody liked, the project that nobody asked them to start, the project they claimed only existed because MN9 was "done". Yes, that one.

Doesn't take a genius to point out that they had decided to delay MN9 well before today, and waited until right now to announce it for the sole purpose of trying to have it not affect the Red Ash KS. They lied to the fans/backers regarding the delay rumors and then kept them in the dark, because they didn't want bad vibes from the delay to affect a completely different project (that ended up failing anyway).

And this is even assuming we buy their excuse that the delay is due to online "features" and bugfixes and that the core game is done. With how shady Inafune has been running this shitshow the past few months, I have no reason to believe they're telling the truth. Hell, the fact that they don't even want to say anything beyond "Q1 2016" to me clearly indicates the core game is still not finished and significant work on the entire project still remains to be done. If you ask me they're just blowing smoke up our asses regarding online "features" and "bugfixing" because for months now they'd been repeating over and over again how finished this project was. In my opinion they've been lying about the state of completion of MN9 for months to sell us on Red Ash. For the people who don't care about the second project, this is completely unnecessary bullshit surrounding what should be a way more transparent process.
i2eUkOCR6Nk3e.gif
 

otakukidd

Member
I obviously should have figured this would happen, but my post is being misconstrued as "MN9 team says they are too busy with Red Ash" when I am not even an official member of the team. As one of the few English speakers at comcept, I help out when needed on small tasks and community stuff but that's about it when it comes to MN9.

The first part of the screencap with me apologizing for the silence is because I was introduced as as new comcept producer about a week or so before the Red Ash campaign started in one of the MN9 updates. However, I have been completely inactive on the forums since joining comcept. I am talking about my own personal silence. It's been brought up in a few threads about the surveys and such and I just recently noticed.
The picture everyone is quoting is my first actual post in the forums, if I am not mistaken...

The reason that the producer on MN9 first denied the rumors on the forums is because their team was still working towards a September 15/18 release date. So yes, they were still rumors at that point. When the game is planned for so many platforms all it takes is one failed certification and everything goes out the window.


So one of the ports failed cert?
 
Answers from the producer that said it was OK.

Hey everyone. Nick here.

Firstly, let me sincerely apologize for being late in answering questions and clearing up the confusion. As we are currently at Gamescom, it will take time for us to reply, but please be reassured that we will answer your questions as soon as we are able to.

Below, you can find my answers to some of the concerns that have came up. We are going to do our best to clear up any concerns, so if you need further info please continue to post in this thread.

Q: When did you actually find out about the delay and why it wasn't informed to the backers right away?

A: The delay was decided about a week ago. We (all partners) all made the decision together. The decision required discussion since we needed to consider the possibility of releasing the game on time but with some bugs still inside. However, doing that would not only damage the game itself, but most importantly damage the actual gaming experiences of our backers and fans. The reason we waited until Gamescom to announce the delay is simply that it took time to weigh the options and make a final decision. There was a rumor already out there, but I can assure you that backers received the news of a definite delay (100% confirmed by us) before anyone else. I gave the go-ahead to Josh to post the update before the very first interview we had during first day or Gamescom (today).


Q: Why is this fix taking so long?
A: The delay is not only to fix the bug, but we actually need time to test the fix and to submit to the platform holders for testing. That process can take up a lot of time, especially when you are releasing on as many platforms as Mighty No. 9 has been developed for. Each platform holder has their own special caveats and requirements that complicate this process, especially when you are dealing with network features. Also with the upcoming AAA title rush and the end of the year game rush, it takes longer to get approval from platform holders than usual.


Q: Why did you say the game was done if it doesn't seem to be done now?
A: We said the game is done, simply because the development of the core content of the game is truly done at this time and everything we were doing was to clean up the bugs and polish the game. At that point, we were working together with Inti Creates to polish up the game and squash any bugs remaining. It's only recently that it became clear that there were a number of critical bugs that pertained to some of the extra online modes. A decision was made to fix all of those and push back the release date so that we could deliver the best game possible to our backers and fans.

Q: Why were there rumors circulating about the delay from retailers before backers were informed?
A: For retailers, the shipping of boxes with discs in them across the world takes some time before a game can be on shelves everywhere. Because we were running into these problems so close to release, our publisher informed retailers that the game would not make the date we were targeting. Some retailers changed the release date to a placeholder date as a result, but we weren't sure yet ourselves how much time we would need to fix everything for all platforms.

This unfortunately created a situation where we weren't able to say exactly how long of a delay we were looking at, while people saw the stores change the release date before we could explain why. We’re sorry for all the confusion that arose as a result.

However, while we are still hard at work at making Mighty No. 9 a polished and great game, we can say we are aiming at a Q1 2016 release date.



If there are any parts that you are not clear about or if you need to inquire further for a more in depth response, please leave a comment below. Thank you very much.

-Nick
 

vongruetz

Banned
A delay is bad enough news but the fact that they denied it recently makes this really dumb. The fact that they were probably waiting for Red Ash to get funded also makes it super gross.

This is what angers me more than anything. If they just delayed the game, then fine. But they didn't. When rumors started swirling about the game being delayed, they invented some elaborate response about how it was just a bug with Amazon's pre-order system. "Don't worry, the game is still on schedule."

That's not PR mis-communication. That is being dishonest with your fans and customers. All they had to do was come out and say the game needed more work.

This reminds me of the situation that happened with Ubisoft when they revealed that both the PS4 and XB1 versions of AC Unity would be 900p. Everyone was outraged because they thought the resolution should have been higher on the PS4. Maybe there were technical limitations involved with the decision or maybe they wanted parity since the game was in a marketing deal with Xbox. Who knows. But what happened is Ubisoft came out and started to spin BS reasons for the resolution. "900p has always been our intended goal" or some such hogwash. But a month prior they had announced that 1080p for both systems was their goal. So which is it?

It didn't matter if Unity was 1080p or 900. It doesn't matter that Might No. 9 is being delayed. But being openly dishonest with your customers is simply inexcusable.
 

Sneds

Member
Seems to be a contradiction:

A: The delay was decided about a week ago. We (all partners) all made the decision together. The decision required discussion since we needed to consider the possibility of releasing the game on time but with some bugs still inside. However, doing that would not only damage the game itself, but most importantly damage the actual gaming experiences of our backers and fans. The reason we waited until Gamescom to announce the delay is simply that it took time to weigh the options and make a final decision. There was a rumor already out there, but I can assure you that backers received the news of a definite delay (100% confirmed by us) before anyone else. I gave the go-ahead to Josh to post the update before the very first interview we had during first day or Gamescom (today).

...

A: For retailers, the shipping of boxes with discs in them across the world takes some time before a game can be on shelves everywhere. Because we were running into these problems so close to release, our publisher informed retailers that the game would not make the date we were targeting. Some retailers changed the release date to a placeholder date as a result, but we weren't sure yet ourselves how much time we would need to fix everything for all platforms.
 

nynt9

Member
Seems to be a contradiction:

Yeah, they said the Amazon date was a big then in the interview they say they didn't know they were going to delay then in the same interview they said they told retailers they're delaying weeks before. These do not add up. Are they even trying?
 

Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
Has anyone addressed the fact he has been working on ReCore with Armature Studio for 15 months? I wonder how much that has cut in to his focus with MN9. Microsoft surely threw a hell of a lot more money at him than Kickstarter did.
 

Crocodile

Member
Yeah, they said the Amazon date was a big then in the interview they say they didn't know they were going to delay then in the same interview they said they told retailers they're delaying weeks before. These do not add up. Are they even trying?

It reads to me:
A) The testing wasn't going well and they thought they might have been the possibility of a delay
B) Deep Silver informed retailers because they need to due to long lead times
C) It later became clear they had to (in their eyes) delay - it was no longer a possibility but a reality
D) Official announcement is made

Of course, even if yesterday was the first time an announcement was made official, given the way THE INTERNET WORKS, as soon as Deep Silver sends out memos to retailers, we get wind that something is up. If they had said, "there is a possibility we may have to delay the game and are still thinking it over" as soon as those dates starting changing on those retailer websites and then later (now) say "yep we do indeed have to delay" I think things would have gone over better. Maybe?

I also talked about this Anihwak yesterday but given this press-release, it seems they never considered a staggered release (bug fix and release on some platforms now, then bug test and ship on other platforms later)? Lots of other indie devs are doing that since they are right, launching on 35225213 platforms at once is hard.

Has anyone addressed the fact he has been working on ReCore with Armature Studio for 15 months? I wonder how much that has cut in to his focus with MN9. Microsoft surely threw a hell of a lot more money at him than Kickstarter did.

I don't really think people working on more than one game at a time is a crime nor was it some Kickstarter promise :p That and Armature has nothing to do with MN9.
 

Wereroku

Member
Seems to be a contradiction:

Not really even if they could have gotten it fixed and approved for a digital release at the first date they wouldn't have been able to get it to manufacturing in time. They probably let deep silver know they wouldn't have it ready by their cutoff.
 

nynt9

Member
It reads to me:
A) The testing wasn't going well and they thought they might have been the possibility of a delay
B) Deep Silver informed retailers because they need to due to long lead times
C) It later became clear they had to (in their eyes) delay - it was no longer a possibility but a reality
D) Official announcement is made

Of course, even if yesterday was the first time an announcement was made official, given the way THE INTERNET WORKS, as soon as Deep Silver sends out memos to retailers, we get wind that something is up. If they had said, "there is a possibility we may have to delay the game and are still thinking it over" as soon as those dates starting changing on those retailer websites and then later (now) say "yep we do indeed have to delay" I think things would have gone over better. Maybe?

I also talked about this Anihwak yesterday but given this press-release, it seems they never considered a staggered release (bug fix and release on some platforms now, then bug test and ship on other platforms later)? Lots of other indie devs are doing that since they are right, launching on 35225213 platforms at once is hard.



I don't really think people working on more than one game at a time is a crime nor was it some Kickstarter promise :p That and Armature has nothing to do with MN9.

Even then vehemently denying a delay and refusing to further comment on it in conjunction with the Red Ash timing makes them look real bad.
 
It reads to me:
A) The testing wasn't going well and they thought they might have been the possibility of a delay
B) Deep Silver informed retailers because they need to due to long lead times
And yet, a day later after we found out Amazon delayed the game, they told a moderator everything was OK despite them knowing they had issued a delay notification to retailers and knowing there was a real change of that delay becoming a real thing.
C) It later became clear they had to (in their eyes) delay - it was no longer a possibility but a reality
D) Official announcement is made


Added the bolded phrase.

And as you said, we live in the internet age, the moment the delay is published by retailers, we will know, amateur move by all means.

Still feels like they knew the delay was a hard fact the moment they issued the delay notification.
 

Silvawuff

Member
I feel this whole situation could have been avoided with some properly handled PR. I don't think anyone minds a game getting delayed to make it better.

I understand the complications and contingencies that can arise with any sort of production job, but I do think the ball was really dropped here, and people are rightfully angry with how they've been treated as a result.
 

Wereroku

Member
Added the bolded phrase.

And as you said, we live in the internet age, the moment the delay is published by retailers, we will know, amateur move by all means.

Still feels like they knew the delay was a hard fact the moment they issued the delay notification.

Well the physical version was going to be delayed either way. They couldn't have gotten the updated code to them in time. I'm guessing they failed cert in the middle of the red ash kickstarter and didn't want to say anything. So it is a shady thing to do but I doubt there was some super conspiracy going on.

I feel this whole situation could have been avoided with some properly handled PR. I don't think anyone minds a game getting delayed to make it better.

I understand the complications and contingencies that can arise with any sort of production job, but I do think the ball was really dropped here, and people are rightfully angry with how they've been treated as a result.

PR has been their main problem since 8-4 stopped working with them. I don't know why they didn't keep someone with them the entire time to handle all of that. I mean hell they hired a single community manager to handle all of that while still getting assigned other work in the company.
 

Crocodile

Member
Even then vehemently denying a delay and refusing to further comment on it in conjunction with the Red Ash timing makes them look real bad.

Added the bolded phrase.

And as you said, we live in the internet age, the moment the delay is published by retailers, we will know, amateur move by all means.

Still feels like they knew the delay was a hard fact the moment they issued the delay notification.

I agree with both of you. If they had said "there might be a delay but we aren't 100% sure yet - we will confirm in within a week or two" that would have been preferable to saying nothing/denying. It's just not a contradiction from my reading. Perhaps we are at a point though (poor communication for so long) that maybe the only way for them to regain good will is release the game AND (important) have it be good.
 

nynt9

Member
I agree with both of you. If they had said "there might be a delay but we aren't 100% sure yet - we will confirm in within a week or two" that would have been preferable to saying nothing/denying. It's just not a contradiction from my reading. Perhaps we are at a point though (poor communication for so long) that maybe the only way for them to regain good will is release the game AND (important) have it be good.

I think they can regain some semblance of good will by that, but few of the complaints at this point are about the quality of the game. It's about their business practices. So I don't think Inafune can easily recover from this. If he made a new Kickstarter people will approach it extremely skeptically.
 

Holundrian

Unconfirmed Member
You know I was reserving the possibility that it just might be incredible incompetence that made this happen.
But them continuing to feed us these contradictions and bad excuses makes it look really deliberate. There is just to many things happening now how is it possible for all of them to be just coincidence.

Even if M9 is great I don't ever want to be involved with another Inafune kickstarter.
That is not how you show respect to your backers.
 

bumpkin

Member
I'm just miffed that the delay seemingly is predicated upon issues with the game's online play. I doubt I'll even touch that part of the game, primarily because every single game that has any sort of "leaderboards" for times or scores inevitably becomes pointless when people find a way to break/hack the game and post impossible-to-beat ones.
 
So Kickstarter is literally giving money to a stranger to give you something in return and hoping he doesn't just run away with it. I don't know how people can give someone unknown their money since Kickstarter doesn't care about the outcome. I can only see giving money to known people that their reputation is on the line if they don't finish what they promised like Igarashi or Inafune, which to me defeats the purpose of Kickstarter.

At least good things have come from Kickstarter so one guy going crazy hasn't affected the good side of crowd funding things that otherwise wouldn't exist.
 

vid

Member
I'm just miffed that the delay seemingly is predicated upon issues with the game's online play. I doubt I'll even touch that part of the game, primarily because every single game that has any sort of "leaderboards" for times or scores inevitably becomes pointless when people find a way to break/hack the game and post impossible-to-beat ones.

Leaderboards will get broken within a day, but some of us raised our pledges or bought gifts for friends specifically for the online co-op and race modes. I appreciate the idea that they'll work at launch, instead of "whenever".
 
So Kickstarter is literally giving money to a stranger to give you something in return and hoping he doesn't just run away with it. I don't know how people can give someone unknown their money since Kickstarter doesn't care about the outcome. I can only see giving money to known people that their reputation is on the line if they don't finish what they promised like Igarashi or Inafune, which to me defeats the purpose of Kickstarter.

In the article it says that he did have a small following. But I'm also sure that with only 1,000 people backing it, he probably knew he could get away with burning the books without making major headlines.

I looked up his work though and I'm sorry but those people deserved to lose their money. If it wasn't by him then it would have been through the local magic bean salesman. I'm sure the book bonfire got more laughs than his comics ever did.


Fuck, I've read obituaries that were funnier than this.
 

Pachinko

Member
Reading that post RockmanZX put up from last week tells us pretty much all we need to know -

First of all , Mighty Number 9 in all probability had a content complete beta as of January 2015- that is, all the stages were done and the game could be played through but it had bugs. After the deep silver partnership happened, the entire scope of the game was expanded to what comcept /inticreates wanted all along - this includes online features.

Secondly, Mighty Number 9 is due out on PC(via steam),OSX(mac), Linux, PS4,PSvita, PS3,Xbox 1, Xbox 360, WiiU and 3DS. That's 10 versions. It also stands to reason that the actual development went PC , then osx/linux , then ps4/xb1 and then that version got ported to the wii U/ps3/360 and finally it seems they outsourced the vita/3ds editions to 2 companies.

So , bugs or not , with 10 versions to release , 7 of which require certification they likely looked over some options. Option A - Stick with the original release where there were some bugs with the game and online features and have the game be forever tarnished but make impatient people happy to have the game. Option B - Fix the bugs across all 10 versions of the game and then submit the game for certification , this would probably have taken until mid october and the game might be releasable in early november. Problem though ? early november is when all the biggest games come out , who is going to buy mighty number 9 when they can have fallout 4, call of duty 2015 and the new tomb raider ? This brings us to Option C - the one they've chosen - that is , finish the game fully , clean up the bugs and get it certified and ready for release but wait until a release window with less competition is available. Perhaps february or march ? but maybe even April.

Another factor is that Inafune wants to launch Mighty Number 9 has a full on brand - there will be toys and a cartoon to complement the game. Cartoons take awhile but perhaps it will be ready by next spring so they can just launch everything at the same time ? This is also why the game is using an expensive toolset like Unreal instead of just making a MUCH cheaper sprite game. The potential audience for a sprite based game is probably only equal to the number of people who backed the game +25%. You'd have a harder time getting a cartoon studio or a toy manufacturer to commit money and time to toys and shows with a snes looking game but making it look modern ? now they might be on board.

The goal here was never to simply make a megaman clone for megaman fans, it was to launch a new character and brand that is wholly owned by inafune and comcept. The 5 million we all gave them to start up their idea coupled with the probably 5 million they received from deep silver is intended as an investment - one that Inafune hopes will turn into 50-100 million over the next few years. Money which can be used to make future products without needing crowd funding or outside investor support.
 
Why isn't GAF talking about MN9's big update we got today?

Mighty Gunvolt PC for free and a MN9 PC demo for every backer sounds like a sweet sweet deal.

Even IGN reported it, it's so weird I couldn't find anyone on GAF discussing it.

I did look if there was perhaps a new thread but found nothing. Maybe I missed it.
 
Top Bottom