Inafune talks Mighty No. 9 delay, sequel/spin-off, amiibo potential

A portion of a USgamer interview with Keiji Inafune...

USG: The delay on Mighty No. 9, what happened there? I've read that the game was pretty much done, it’s just there’s a multiplayer bug or something?

Inafune: What you heard is pretty much true. Because of the multiplayer bugs, if we had submitted the game builds to the first-party platform holders with those bugs, we would have been rejected for sure. So based on that, we couldn't complete [console publishing] certification for the project. However, because we were actually aiming towards [mid-September] for the release, the game was getting really close to being finished. We are actually doing the certification process right now, so there are a couple of console versions already in the platform holders’ hands. They’re reviewing the builds and all of that stuff, so it’s definitely progressing, but because the game is on so many different types of hardware and we have to complete so many builds for so many regions, the process takes up a lot of time.

USG: On that note, once you get the game out and in peoples’ hands, are you going to want to take a break and step back to recover from the project, or are you looking to expand the franchise while the iron is hot?

Inafune: There’s no break for me, and the reason I say that is because I have always been working this way, ever since I was at Capcom. I don’t want to finish a game and then start sitting and thinking about the next one. I’d rather have the team thinking about the next game while they are finishing up the current project. For this project, Comcept’s team is the core creative team, so our work for Mighty No. 9, the original game, is pretty much done, because it’s in the final phase of the production and we’re just pushing out the game. So we already have a team working on something coming up next for the Mighty No. 9 series. Could be a sequel, it could be a spin-off, or something, but they’re just brainstorming right now what we can do for this title. So, to answer your question, no, there’s no break—I always want to think about the next one, and just keep moving as far as I can go.

USG: Now that Nintendo has opened the gates for third-party Amiibo, are you looking to expand in that direction for your Nintendo fans?

Inafune: That’s definitely an option for us, and if we have the opportunity to do it, then we’ll definitely take the chance. And also, we know for a fact a lot of our backers are Nintendo fans, because we ran a platform survey [for Mighty No. 9], and we see how many people are choosing Nintendo hardware. So it's definitely something we have to look into.