Vamphuntr said:
Maybe but they had a team working on the prototype after all. The developers were pretty interested in the fans' input too. They were interested in making one but Capcom wasn't interested in pouring money on the project (hence the whole prototype thing).
The way Capcom is set up is weird.
To get a game greenlit, you have to convince someone in charge that the idea is viable. That person that has to convince other people that the game is salable. Then those people decide on a budget for the game and green light it. This process can be quick or it can take a year. It can also involve way more steps or a few less.
Inafune was the head of the "rank" that decided whether game ideas were viable, but he still had a difficult time convincing others the games would be marketable. For example, Ono went through Inafune to get SFIV greenlit and Inafune fought hard because he believed now was the the time to bring fighting games back and SFIV would succeed. I disagree with Inafune on a lot of things but he didn't get to where he was for nothing.
MML3 was a weird case. They convinced someone, probably Inafune's idea but maybe Takeuchi or Kawata or somebody, that MML3 was viable. And for some reason...Capcom announced this. They announced it before the game was greenlit. So the (likely salaried) team started preparing the pre-production phase to show the purse-holders above them that MML3 would do well.
Then it got canceled.
We might never know why, exactly. I've explained earlier that I think the slightly flaccid 3DS sales and the (likely way more important) months they couldn't work on the game after the earthquake probably did it in. Maybe the company did not have faith in the Mega Man brand and, without Inafune there to fight for it, saw no obstacle to cutting their losses. Maybe they decided they'd rather have that team working on Dragon's Dogma instead of a risky Mega Man project. Maybe it's all of that combined.
End of the day, Capcom really should not have announced this project before it began actual production.