Thoughts on Inafune's Broadcast

Just a few minutes ago Capcom did a live bilingual interview with Keiji Inafune to celebrate Mega Man's 22nd birthday, which is today! (Well, an hour from now for me). A good portion of the broadcast was dedicated to hawking new Mega Man products, such as The Complete Works books for both X and Mega Man, and hyping out the Mega Man manga by Hitoshi Ariga, Mega Man Mega Mix, all of these products which are being translated and released in the states by Udon Entertainment.

Some more products include the new E-Tank energy drink, and some Mega Man toys. Inafune to me seemed really amused more with this merchandise than just plain hawking it out, and I admit that a good chunk of this stuff actually looks pretty cool for your standard Mega Man fan. Inafune and Ariga drew some quick sketches of various Mega Man characters which were signed and then given to fans watching the broadcast, there were about 60,000 US viewers alone.

There was also a Q & A session in which Inafune answered some questions about up coming Mega Man games. He sort of brushed off the question about Legends 3, as I think everyone knows the answer to that one, but I'm sure Inafune still wants to make that game. There were some questions about X9, and Inafune isn't quite ready to make another X game just yet.

Perhaps the only real juicy piece of information that came out of this interview was Inafune's interest in making Mega Man Powered Up 2, and he said it has high chances of being made. I loved Powered Up myself, but honestly, once you play Powered Up, you just want to play Powered Up 2, if only to hear some remixed Mega Man 2 music.

Aside from what was going on with the interviews, the American commentators made a great deal of really stupid jokes about cake that kinda got annoying after awhile, and they didn't translate a great deal so much as run a side show of sorts. I can't really blame them though as Inafune, his producer Hironobu Takeshita, and Ariga seemed to be doing as much bullshitting on the side as the Americans were.

The highlight of the show was the Mega Man 10 trailer and Takeshita's terrible attempt at playing through Sheep Man's stage. I was skeptical about Mega Man 10 at first, but just from seeing that hand full of levels, I am completely pumped up about this one! It looked like just a plain blast to play, and it even looks much better than Mega Man 9! I can't wait till March!