Anyone who woke up this morning and checked Twitter might have been in for a surprise. Or they might not have been. Mighty No. 9 was (and still is at time of writing) trending in the top 3, and with that game, it can only mean one thing.

It would seem Keiji Inafune’s Mega Man follow-up has been delayed yet again. According to NintendoLife, the Xbox Store now lists the release date as “12/02/16.” People took to Twitter to both laugh and smugly state their lack of surprise.

https://twitter.com/Tierdra/status/724975224073129984

https://twitter.com/CatlinNya/status/724964439678660608

But that’s not where this story ends. An hour after the original post, NintendoLife updated the story to state that they made a mistake. When Mighty No. 9 was last officially delayed in January, Comcept originally stated that the game was supposed to release in February 2016. It would have released on the 9th in North America, and the 12th in Europe. In Europe dates are formatted as DD/MM/YY instead of the American style of MM/DD/YY, and it would seem the Xbox Store used this style of formatting by mistake.

NintendoLife made a correction after realizing the Xbox Store was only updated recently with the original – and wrong – February release date. This can be confirmed by several internet detectives in a NeoGAF forum regarding the story.

Basically, as far as anyone knows, Mighty No. 9 has not been delayed again. Yet this hasn’t stopped news sites from reporting the false news, or people celebrating as seen in those Tweets.

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Mighty No. 9 has gotten an infamous reputation as being the modern equivalent of Duke Nuke Forever, a game that was constantly delayed for 12 years before it was finally released to negative reviews. This reputation comes after being delayed three times now. But why do people take joy in seeing these delays, and why do they actively root for the game to fail?

Not long after the success of the Kickstarter, Polygon conducted an interview with Inafune. In the interview, he stated that he wanted to turn Mighty No. 9 into a massive franchise, hoping for comic books, an anime series, and even a live action movie. He would get two of those things in the form of an animated show and a live action movie, but it didn’t sit well with many backers, who only cared about the game.

You can see where they were coming from. Inafune was no longer with Capcom, but his own indie studio. They presumably didn’t have the resources or the legacy to start making movies and TV shows with a new character. What business did he have turning this new Kickstarter project into some massive franchise, especially when the game hadn’t released yet and we barely knew anything about it?

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Inafune then went on to create two Kickstarters for another game called Red Ash, including an anime series for it. This happened after Mighty No. 9 was already delayed once, and he was trying to cover up a second delay as not to hurt Red Ash’s campaign.

It’s not hard to see why people’s favor has turned so harshly against Inafune and his games. His interest lies beyond games, and he’s not afraid to let those games suffer if it means making more money. Fans of Mega Man have been burned constantly for the last decade by Capcom, and now the very man who set himself up as the victim has proven to be no different than the company he left behind.

News about the latest Mighty No. 9 delay might not be true, but after three real delays with no end in sight, don’t expect it or Red Ash any time soon.

About the Author

Josh Griffiths

Josh Griffiths is a writer and amateur historian. He has a passion for 3D platformers, narrative-driven games, and books. Josh is also Cliqist’s video producer. He’s currently working on his first novel, and will be doing so on and off for the next decade.

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