Speculation Train: MMU a Kinect/Move Game?

Been a long time since I did one of this. We are at the eve of PAX, and many things we’ve wondered about Capcom’s Mega Man Universe will be answered in a scant 24 hours. However, a small realization struck me yesterday, and Boss Man insisted I write about it. So then, here we go. What if Mega Man Universe is a game meant to utilize Microsoft’s Kinect and Sony’s Move? What kind of game would that be? How would one even reach such an idea?

Truthfully, I owe my “epiphany” to Lance, based on a comment he made in a post yesterday. There was a little joking about Mega Man Universe actually taking place in a kid’s bedroom, based on the teaser trailer Capcom put out at Comic Con. However, with Kinect and Move, couldn’t Mega Man Universe take place in your bedroom? To be more definitive, Mega Man Universe could be a game that generates stages, obstacles or different forms for Mega Man based on things the Kinect and Move cameras pick up. It wasn’t until I started considering the evidence that this became clear:

• In the trailer, the boy looks at different items around his room. These items transform Mega Man into other forms. This could be achieved with a camera
• The trailer’s tagline is “Your world. Megafied.” This could be taken literally – things from your world are going into the game.
• In an interview on GameSpot a while back, a Capcom spokesperson stated this would be a Mega Man game where imagination is the star.
• It would explain why Capcom is not releasing the game on the Wii.
• At Comic Con, Keiji Inafune said it would be a little ways yet before MMU releases. This would be because Kinect and Move still need to launch.

When you consider the points that way, it does seem compelling. However, I could easily be reading into it too much. After all, Capcom Unity’s original hint at MMU had many of us thinking it would be a 3D game.

To play the devil’s advocate, I tried to consider why MMU wouldn’t be a Kinect/Move game, but these speculations reflected more on why it shouldn’t.  But essentially, how would such a game work? How much would Mega Man fans want to cart all kinds of stuff into their room just to affect the game? How many Mega Man fans want to actually buy a Kinect or Move to play something like this? Kinect is especially vexing, since it’s marketed as the “controller-free controller” but I don’t see how a Mega Man game could be played (enjoyably) without a controller. However, Lance did point out to me that the Xbox 360 could use any old webcam to fill the technical need.

I’ll be honest that I’m not really good at these speculation things, and my past track record isn’t that fantastic. But it is still a provocative idea to consider. What we do know right now, at the eve of PAX, is that the trailer was made the way it was for a reason. The things going on in it aren’t just random, but were thought out. So, what would you think it means?

We’ll know soon.

LanceHeart