Promotional artwork for Mega Man Legends 3, a Nintendo 3DS game that Capcom canceled on Monday.
Image courtesy Capcom

Capcom has put the kibosh on Mega Man Legends 3 for Nintendo 3DS, the company said in a blog post Monday evening.

“Part of [the game development] process includes an assessment of whether the title will go into full production, and is based on a number of criteria with input from different sectors of the company,” wrote Capcom community liaison Greg Moore.

“Unfortunately it was not felt that the Mega Man Legends 3 Project met the required criteria,” he wrote.

Capcom gave no specific reasons why it felt the game was not up to par. But risk aversion has become the watchword for the traditional games industry. While developers of smartphone games can throw any number of ideas on digital storefronts and see what sticks, publishers of $40 games on traditional hardware have become significantly more picky.

Sales of the $250 Nintendo 3DS have been more sluggish than Nintendo’s expectations.

The action-adventure game starring the company’s classic 8-bit character was the long-awaited sequel to the cult classic PlayStation game series, which was notable for its quirky characters and emphasis on storyline.

Capcom was approaching Legends‘ development in an unorthodox way: It said it would release a work-in-progress “prototype” version of the game on the 3DS’ eShop download service, and directly solicited ideas and suggestions from fans through an online forum called Devroom.

The Prototype game (shown above) will not be released, Capcom said, and the Devroom will no longer be updated.

This is the second Mega Man game that Capcom has canceled this year. In March, it killed off Mega Man Universe, an online version of the game for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 that was to feature user-created levels.

The cancellations follow the resignation of Kenji Inafune, one of the original creators of Mega Man and the creative force behind new games in the series. Capcom’s Moore wrote that Legends‘ cancellation was not related to Inafune’s departure.

“Mega Man is still an important franchise within Capcom’s portfolio and we will continue to pursue opportunities to create new titles in the series,” wrote Moore in the Monday blog post.

Just not this one, or that other one.