Taking place one month after the events of the first Mega Man Battle Network game, the plot follows the protagonist Lan Hikari and his online avatar MegaMan.EXE in their fight against the "WWW (World Three)" organization and its attempt to unleash and spread the infectious "Zero Virus" into cyberspace.

The development team's intent was to meld these attributes into a home console title that would appeal to the young gamer audience that they found with the GBA series.

[6] Confirming this with Lan's father, Dr. Yuichiro Hikari, the two set out to search for the cure of the problem, finding many situations of pragmatic Navis infected and causing mayhem.

However, their happiness is short-lived as a former member of the WWW simply named "Professor" reveals this was all part of his scheme to revive the dreaded Life Virus.

Combat takes place in real-time, with MegaMan given the ability to jump, slide, fire his default arm cannon, and dodge enemy attacks on a two-dimensional plane.

[10][11][12][13] Battle Chips are used for dealing large amounts of damage to enemies, protecting and restoring the player's health, summoning other Navi's to MegaMan's aid, and for some platforming abilities.

[2][14][15] Producer Keiji Inafune revealed in an interview with Dengeki that after a string of PlayStation releases, the team chose to focus their development efforts of the Mega Man franchise for Nintendo consoles with the Battle Network series.

[16] They felt that children who played the GBA handheld were beginning to show interest in the GameCube, and that the character was more suitable to a console related to the Nintendo Family Computer, where the franchise originated.

Inafune stated that the developer wanted to "preserve the core of Rockman" by transcending the traditional action elements (i.e. running and jumping) for the current gaming hardware from the perspective of the role-playing series.

Hosoe's company Super Sweep Records has recently been given the rights to produce the soundtrack, and it was released as a part of Megaman's 25th Anniversary on November 2, 2012.

[19] A playable version made appearances in January 2003 at the World Hobby Fair in Osaka and at the Capcom Gamer's Day event in Las Vegas.

[34] According to NPD Group, Network Transmission sold 30,224 copies in North America, making it the eighth best-selling GameCube game in the region for the month of June 2003.

Skyler Miller of G4 summarized, "Network Transmission is painfully difficult not because of any genuine challenge, but because of its cheap enemies, frustrating weapons setup, and unnecessary complications.

"[26] GameSpy's Benjamin Turner felt that the difficulty level was unbalanced rather than too steep, and that once a player gains a foothold on the gameplay and collects enough Battle Chips and power-ups, the challenge subsides.

[10] IGN's Matt Casamassina was conversely impressed by the art style, backgrounds, and frame rate, but disliked the graphics as a whole, proclaiming, "It's a brand new product, but it looks like it could have been released on PlayStation 1, or perhaps even on Super Nintendo.

He asserted, "Even glancing at what you might move to the top of the list involves sending the blue bomber's current chips back to the 'Folder', leaving you with a choice between edging forward with the paltry chargeable beam weapon and standing around waiting for your Custom bar to fill up again.