Amazon Cancels Mighty No. 9 3DS And Vita Pre-Orders 12 Years After They Were Originally Promised

Mighty No. 9 represented Mega Man artist Keiji Inafune’s ambition to resurrect—with the help of millions in funding from devout fans—a classic series that was languishing at the time under Capcom’s stewardship. The results were frequently delayed and generally quite bad. Promised 3DS and PlayStation Vita ports never arrived. It only took Amazon over a decade to finally cancel pre-orders for them.

“It’s over,” Stuart Gipp recently posted on Bluesky along with a screenshot of Amazon UK’s cancellation notice. “Due to a lack of availability, we will not be able to obtain the following item from your order,” it read. “We’ve canceled the item and apologize for the inconvenience.” The order in question was for the 3DS version of Mighty No. 9 placed February 16, 2022. “Mighty No. NEIN!” responded one user.

The Mighty No. 9 Kickstarter was announced at PAX back in 2013 and quickly blew through its initial $900,000 crowdfunding goal. A final stretch goal of $4 million ensured it would come to 3DS and Vita in addition to the PC and console versions, which were supposed to launch in 2015. It ended up being delayed several times and arrived a year later.

The Inafune-led team behind the game, Comcept, was purchased by Level-5 in 2017. The studio blamed that for a delay with the handheld ports but promised they were still coming. “They are not being canceled, we are still in the process of porting,” read a backers-only note posted in June of that year. “The porting had to be put on hold for a while due to the other versions being delayed and the recent adjustment we had in Comcept.”

The ports had actually been subcontracted out to Abstraction Games, but an investigation by Destructoid revealed no work on them had actually been done. In 2018, Abstraction CEO Ralph Egas described it as “a deal we’ve had to agree to in a very short amount of time due to the Kickstarter campaign requirements and the handheld platform version being a stretch goal, etc.” while also blaming the issues with the ports on a lack of timely communication and Comcept not providing source code until just a few months before the desired launch. “At that time I thought this was a great opportunity, but risky.”

A group called Engine Software had taken over the ports after Abstraction Games backed out, and that was the last anyone ever heard publicly about their status. Inafune, meanwhile, started selling NFTs in 2022. He’s still listed as a producer on Level 5's upcoming life sim RPG Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time.

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