Christian Svensson Speaks on Various Things Mega Man

LanceHeart

June 3, 2011

IGN posted a hefty article today with Capcom’s VP of strategic planning and business development Christian “Sven” Svensson. Among topics, he discusses the cancellation of Mega Man Universe, sales of Mega Man 9 and 10, and the present status of Mega Man Legends 3. You’ll find the majority of the Mega Man talk on the second page of the interview, but the rest is an enlightening read as well.
A couple choice selections:

IGN: For Mega Man 9 and Mega Man 10, I don’t recall Capcom ever talking about whether or not those were successful titles given the budget for those two games. Were you pleased with the results?

Svensson: Yes, we were pleased with the results. Let me also say don’t let the 8-bit nature of those games make you think that they didn’t cost much to make because they were not inexpensive. They were efforts, in many cases, larger than most of our other digital efforts in terms of budget. They are not small. We are modestly pleased with how 9 and 10 did. Mega Man 9 especially, I think, was particularly innovative for the time to look back and give classic fans some love. We haven’t done anything like this. No one’s done a classic throwback quite like that and it was one of the first this generation to do it.

Svensson: [On Mega Man Legends 3] Part of that was supposed to be a collaborative effort between the development room and the fans in a very public, transparent display of what goes on behind the scenes. Part of that transparency is, and making clear to fans, is that we’re not in production. The pins and needles feeling that the team has every day of, “Is this game ever going to come out?” is in some ways shared by the fans who’ve put their blood, sweat, and tears into this thing, too. It’s an ambitious experiment in many ways and that community outreach and transparency is something I’ve been pushing more and more for years. When the team came forward with the approach they wanted to take with this title, I was extremely supportive of providing that level of visibility and input. It’s listening to the market in ways that a lot of Japanese developers don’t do.

The challenge with this of course is that you’re opening the kimono very early on and sharing details on a game we hope comes to market. All of our games start this way. It’s rare when something enters production that it doesn’t come out at that point.

via Capcom Unity