Ray is how you pronounce 'zero' in Japanese anyway, e.g. Rei Ayanami is #0 for a reason.
It seems to me all the Megaman clones want to have a game that features Zero instead because Zero is only like way cooler than Megaman but they don't want to offend the hardcore Megaman guys even though I'm pretty sure everyone would still rather have a game about Zero over Megaman.
BTW based on the way Ray talks, I think that's a guy.