Theory as to why there hasn't been any New official Mega Man games lately.

Nine numbered games really for the Battle Network series as the Star Force series were the same series really with just a few tweaks for DS that said. After the second game, every Battle Network game had two versions and in the case of Star Force 1 it got three.

In total between 2001 to 2009 we are talking in the region of 20 releases for the same series with spin offs. Which is total over kill for one series, don't get me wrong I love the games but even I think that's just way to many release in such a short period.

Always really enjoyed MM7 had wished to see more of the series on the SNES.

 

I don't even count the Star Force and Battle Networks games. Classic, X Zero, ZX and Legends are the only ones I count. I don't really care much for the X Series outside of X1 and X4 The others are too backtracky. I do like X7 but I'm in a minority there. But X7 only gets my vote because it's Zero's Game. Anything with that Zero is fine by me. I HATE the redesign of Zero when he finally got his own series.

 

Isn't that kinda like saying the original and X series should be counted together, because they're basically the same gameplay-wise etc., with X just getting some tweaks for the SNES? Yes, EXE and SF are similar, but I'd almost want to say they're more different from each other than the original and X series were - ex. the at least somewhat different (and IMO worse) battle system in SF.

That said, while EXE doesn't have nine numbered games, you could argue it has seven with EXE 4.5 somewhere in there, too. It's a spin-off, but if you consider the gameplay and such, it's still closer to the main line games than Network Transmission, EXE WS or Battle Chip GP.