Regarding the Mighty No. 9 release

To the fans eagerly awaiting the release of Mighty No. 9,
 
Unfortunately, we have an announcement that will be very disappointing to all of you. In preparation for the February release of Mighty No. 9 we have been working hard with our partners to resolve any network issues and porting work necessary to publish Mighty No. 9 on the various platforms. However, the issues relating to the network modes were more critical than expected, and it has become apparent that we will need to delay the game from its February 9th release date. We have been working up until the very last moment to resolve these issues in order to make the February release, but it has become clear that we no longer have enough time to fix the issues and have everything prepared for release.

The reason for the delay is rooted in bugs inside the network modes, and specifically problems with matchmaking. There are two large reasons for this problem, one of them being the large number of platforms supported (the solution for each platform is slightly different) and the other stems from the fact that the engine we are using is no longer being updated which means adjustments for matchmaking and online code are being made manually (actually reprogramming parts of the engine by the dev team themselves). Unfortunately, this is all a result of miscalculations on the part of us, the development staff. As a result, our fans who have been looking forward to Mighty No. 9 have been forced to wait for over half a year longer than expected, and for that we are sincerely sorry. I want to take this chance to apologize personally, and on the behalf of the development staff.

Over the end of the year break and the beginning of 2016, the development staff has been working on these issues non-stop without break, and thanks to their hard work the end is in sight. We continue to make progress to resolve these last issues that have been holding up the release of the game on the different platforms.

Because we are constantly working on it in cooperation with all our partners, we want to wait and make sure that everything is confirmed to be ready before giving a new specific release date. But we expect it to realistically be in Spring 2016.

For this 3rd delay of the game, we have no excuses for disappointing our fans and especially our backers once more. We want to take this chance to express our sincerest apologies to everyone who has looked forward to the release.

Although we are far past our original release date, the release of Mighty No. 9 is still right around the corner. We are all working hard to make sure that we can finish and release the game to all of our fans as quickly as possible, and ask once more for your support of this project that we have created together over these last few years.
 
Keiji Inafune

Comments

Mighty No. 44972 Mighty_Iwai's picture

Leave Online Mode for later

Release the main game sooner, Backers are willing to play only a part of the game. Shovel Knight released other parts of the game in free DLCs later and it's a good way for the replay of the game.
Comcept don't even need to take away the online mode from the game, only to turn off the option tha gives acess to the Online Mode. Than, later releasing update to correct and open this feature.
Mighty No. 41639 Tracer83's picture

faith

I know it's been a long road, but I believe in this. We asked a lot of comcept in a short period. Maybe they could chosen a better engine, but what's done is done. Keep working hard. I can wait. It will be worth it.
Mighty No. 13027 Nicotine's picture

since when is upcoming on 3

since when is upcoming on 3 years a "short period" for a game that's not huge like skyrim or fallout 4 in scope?
Mighty No. 41639 Tracer83's picture

It's to be expected

It's to be expected considering the scope of the project. It's not a rehash of the same game. Mighty no 9 had nothing to go off of. Also. Trolling them might get us a fez 2 response from them. It'll be worth the wait.
Mighty No. 46796 Shadhahvar's picture

Your comments. They make

Your comments. They make Nintendo fanboys look rational. Nothing to go off of? The self-acknowledged spiritual successor to a decades old series reunites most of its original creative team and shows backers assets created BEFORE the kickstarter... and you say this has "nothing to go off of"? HAHAHAHAAAA HA HA HAAHA HA HA!
Mighty No. 34632 Seth Yuikora's picture

I'm Not Upset

A little disappointed I can't play tomorrow, but I am honestly happy you care enough to release a full game on release-date, and not push some buggy crap out that EA would be proud of.
Mighty No. 38121 Krytture's picture

All we want is the game.

Screw whatever side crap you are tying to line up. Screw online for a single player game. This was supposed to be a game from the heart. A revival of something lots of people love and wanted to see revived. Now it's nothing but a disappointment. You used a 3d engine for a 2d game. You have delayed the game for over a year due to extra modes. Side crap. Stuff that could just come down as dlc or a patch. Comcept is even worse than Capcom at this point.
Mighty No. 103 Hypercoyote's picture

Ditto.  I've got plenty of

Ditto.  I've got plenty of games to play, I can wait.  A bad game is bad forever and I don't want to play a buggy game on day one.

The way people are reacting to this is over the top, hearing people talk about this is like their entire life's pursuit of happiness hinged on this game's imminent release.  If this is your biggest disappointment in life, then you're extremely blessed.

And then the comments about how Infaune has 'betrayed us' or 'tainted his rep'.  Typical Internet mob mentality.  I don't agree with the way some things were handled, but in no way do I feel betrayed or that he ruined his reputation.  He's a business man, I realize I'm not going to agree with every decision, and as an 'investor' (I used that term as loosely as possible for a Kickstarter), I'm okay with that.  When you invest in someone, unless you hold some kind of controlling portion of the company, you don't get a say-so in how things are run and your money is entirely at the mercy of their decisions.  You have to know that going in.  Everyone who is complaining about wanting their money back only has their self to blame for not fully understanding the parameters of a Kickstarter campaign.

At this point, they would be well within their rights to just cancel the game and send nothing else to anyone, does everyone realize that?  But I imagine they have the sense to not dissappoint people like that (the way people are acting like they have disappointed us) and that they will eventually deliver a good product and all the promised rewards.  In the meantime, stop getting stirred up, stop stirring up negativity over this game and let the game speak for itself.
Mighty No. 13027 Nicotine's picture

The "It's a bad game forever"

The "It's a bad game forever" nonsense is just that - nonsense.

SUPPOSEDLY the main game has been finished for quite some time. It's just multiplayer (who cares for a single player game) that's the hold up....

so...the game is done..... the rest that's causing the delay is just stretch goal crap that people only did to get to higher tiers or to help fund the project further...
Mighty No. 46796 Shadhahvar's picture

I completely agree. When

I completely agree. When Shigeru Miyamoto made that quip about "a bad game forever",he did so in a day and age when the internet was not utilized as a frequent bug-fixer/patching tool. The quote no no longer applies. A rushed game with a "bad" mod or feature, or even just a rushed "bad game" can become a good one with a single patch download, problem solved.

The quote no longer applies, people. Listen to this guy.
Mighty No. 16329 Kio's picture

Thank you

Finally,someone level headed. I completely agree with all of that,a bad game is forever bad,these guys actually taking their time to work out the bugs is greatly appreciated by me and I'm sure others as well. I've got plenty of stuff to tide me over,so I say go ahead and squash those bugs.
Mighty No. 40908 零式's picture

オンラインプレイ機能を外して早く発売するということはできな

オンラインプレイ機能を外して早く発売するということはできないのでしょうか。
発売を遅らせてまで、オンライン機能を最初からいれなくてはいけない大きな理由でもあるのでしょうか。

それとも、オンライン周りの不具合以外にも、致命的な問題があるのでしょうか。
Mighty No. 46796 Shadhahvar's picture

We trusted you

When I first heard about Mighty No. 9, I was in poor health and unemployed, but Mr. Inafune was the "creator" and "artist" responsible for one of the most important pop-culture figures of my youth. Without even enough money to pay for my medical bills, I scraped together over $80 to ensure that Mr. Inafune could pioneer the way for all the underdog, independent developers and artists of the video game industry. I believed that because of what Mr. Inafune was doing with Mighty No. 9, one day such creators would be able to realize their dreams without needing to compromise their visions due to the strings attached to the money their publishers provided.

I thought that Mr. Inafune's return was a sign of change for the better in the world of video game creation. I thought that it was a sign that honest, independent developers would supplant dishonest, mainstream publishing corporations. I thought that it was a sign that the creators would no longer be beholden to big money. I supported Mighty No. 9 without hesitation.

As to these thoughts, I know now that I was sadly very mistaken.

After all this time, all we have to show for our investment are ads, trailers, and pitches for properties we've never heard of, that we never asked for, and most importantly, we never wanted. After all this time, a demo (that is a shadow of what was great about Mega Man) is all Comcept has to show for the trust we placed in them. After all this time, we can only begin to wonder how much of the 4+ million dollars we pledged have been funneled into projects and intellectual properties which we did not give Comcept permission to fund. After all this time, I now realize Mr. Inafune never wanted to drive a stake through the cold black heart of the corporatism that neuters, abuses, and takes advantage of artists. That is because at heart, he is not the artist we believed him to be. He has communicated in all but words that his only desire is to become such a corporate power, and his heart is cut from the same cloth as the corporation he was "excused" from.

Do I want my money back? That would be nice, but I can say that even if all our money was returned, it wouldn't begin to make ammends for the most despicable offense of all: Keiji Inafune has murdered the credibility, and therefore the future, of countless independent developers, and has murdered the dream that maybe oneday the artist and not the financier might be the captain of his works' destinies.
Mighty No. 50124's picture

I want my money back. I don't

I want my money back. I don't even want to play this game anymore. What I've played so far wasn't even that great. Inafune has lost me and I'll never support him again unless he fixes this in a first-class manner.
Mighty No. 39701 Miraglyth's picture

This is pretty darn

This is pretty darn unfortunate. But, it gives the opportunity to make right something important at the third attempt:

Get Deep Silver to set up a simultaneous release date for this game worldwide.

The hype, the story and the delays mean this game will get a lot of attention when it is finally launched, and in every situation (buyers from hype, piracy reduction, lifetime sales etc.) it is better for the game to release on the same day everywhere.
Mighty No. 36171 Stavo's picture

Please just release without multiplayer

Please just release without multiplayer, show us you have the rest of the game done!
Mighty No. 36171 Stavo's picture

Please just release without multiplayer

Please just release without multiplayer, show us you have the rest of the game done!
Mighty No. 24789 NGamerS's picture

Dissapointment

I really want to see a new release date by march, and NO MORE DELAYS!!
This has been NERVEWRECKING probably more for you than me,but I can't help feeling like it isn't worth it anymore.
Mighty No. 42271 Zan Sidera's picture

Additional information

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/the-whys-and-wherefores-of-mighty-no-9

Inafune: When the first possibility of the delay came up, there was definitely that consideration of [launching] with single-player only, and then patching in the multiplayer later on. We actually brought this up to Deep Silver, the publisher, and from their point of view, a business side point of view, this way of marketing the game is not going to end up well, business-wise. 

[Inafune's translator added the following information: When you release a game with single-player content only, you can only label that game as a single-player game when you do the certification to the first-party, the platform holders. So you cannot write "single-player/multiplayer" on the box or any other way to promote it, so it’s only a single-player game. When that happens, the price will drop—we cannot price the game as a the single-player and multiplayer game, we can only price it as a single-player game.] 

So from that standpoint, Deep Silver’s decision was to wait and get everything else together, everything that we’ve promised to backers and to the fans, and to start the sales from that point. That’s the result of teaming up with a publisher to make the project bigger. If we were still just an independent developer and self-publishing this game, that option would definitely have been something we would have considered when we were struggling [with the bugs].
Mighty No. 46748 Brain Digger's picture

Boring

I don't even want to play Mighty No. 9 anymore. After playing the demo, I realized the game isn't even that fun. I expected to be as excited as when playing Megaman Zero for the first time... But it wasn't that good at all.

I've recently had the chance to play a different indie game named 20XX which captures the feel of the Megaman X series so well. It's amazing! These guys took every good aspect of Megaman X and made it even better. There's more vertical platforming, more upgrades... And the most brilliant part - it's a roguelike! They have procedurally generated stages and everything! And what little level-design is in there is brilliant!
Also, it uses 2D graphics, which result in a much better aesthetic than those ugly Playstation 2 era low-poly models seen in Mighty No.9's demo.

Seems like the fans know better than the original creators. Inafune has failed me.

If I hadn't backed the Kickstarter, I wouldn't even bother getting the game now.
Mighty No. 13579 Django's picture

Two digital copies for backers please

This is unfortunate. All I can say is that I really hope this game has an incredible amount of polish when it releases. I am getting the Vita version and with a year of delays I sincerely hope you optimized the frig out of all the versions of this game. I am expecting as much polish as Oddworld New and Tasty. The biggest disappointment for me is that clearly most of the backers have lost all faith in Comcept....this means as a company you will never be able to crowd fund another game. And depending on what great ideas Inafune has...we as gamers are the ones who miss out. Trust is important if you want to make games. The mistakes I see with this project is that you haven't been super transparent ( which I understand is the Japanese way with game development) and you promised too much. If some of the needless stretch goals were just off the table this game would be beautiful and in our hands. I for one don't mind the wait. But it would be excellent if you included some manner of apology incentive for backers. We are the producers of this game, we paid for it and it is because of us that it exists. Our product is very behind schedule and you have not come through on your commitments. How are you going to make this situation better for us the backers? What can you offer to ease our minds? Perhaps you should really think about that? One possibility is that you offer us the game on not one, but TWO platforms of our choosing. I would be more inclined to forgive if I got my PS vita and 3DS versions considering I gave you almost 100 dollars of my hard earned money for broken promises and a yet to be proven "good" game from the man who gave me my beloved Megaman. And again...I am sorry this happened and will effectively blacklist you from Kickstarter or any other crowdfunding site. I hope Inafune finds a way to continue making games through traditional publishers.
Mighty No. 25594 Sung Jo's picture

cut the bullshit out

Delaying 1 year because of 2 players coop? are you fucking serious?
This isn't a 40 people online game like bf4. Just cut the bullshit and release the fucking game without coop. 
Fuck you Inafune I want my money back.

 
Mighty No. 41430 yymok's picture

You still have my support

Just want to say you still have my support... :(

Perhaps you should metion the rewrite-engine thing or other technical problems eariler so some slightly more constructive discussion could be raised. I think the problem around here is more about transparency than disappoint about the delay itself...

Anyways it should be a very tough time for you right now and I just want to show my support.
Mighty No. 31716 Temen-ni-gru's picture

Don't worry

This is pretty common with newly created companies and kickstarter projects because a lot of project variables are unknown.
We got yo' back on this and are pretty anxious to play the game!

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