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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Super Smash Bros. Brawl Official Updates

naznatips on 21 January 2008
Non Sequor said:

You can think of things in terms of each franchise being allocated a certain number of slots. The fans obviously want characters from their favorite series, but if there are too many characters per series then the character list would be too unwieldly.

You could break the franchises into tiers based on how important they are in sales, devotion of their fanbases, and simply how many useable characters they can provide:

  • Mario is Nintendo's flagship franchise and so its likely to be allocated more slots than any other franchise. It already has 4 characters confirmed and the 5th is a shoe in.
  • Pokemon gets 4 slots.
  • Zelda is definitely a three slot franchise and it would make perfect sense to have the three Triforce bearing characters in those slots.
  • Kirby is definitely another three slot franchise. Don't expect any hidden Kirby characters.
  • StarFox could be a 2 or 3 slotter. I'm leaning toward 2 slots.
  • It looks like Earthbound is a 2 slotter.
  • Metroid is hard to place. In the US and Europe, it should be a 2 slotter, or maybe even a 3 slotter. In Japan it would qualify as a 1 slotter. 2 slots seems reasonable to me since Nintendo is at least vaguely aware they have western fans. Ridley seems the likely candidate for second Metroid character, but Dark Samus is also possible.
  • I'd expect 2 slots for Fire Emblem.
  • Donkey Kong is probably relegated to 2 slot status. I don't think there's enough fan interest to add K. Rool and Dixie Kong isn't worth the trouble it would take to differentiate her from Diddy Kong.
  • F-Zero ought to be worthy of two slots. Black Shadow could be a second F-Zero character.
  • Wario Ware, Ice Climbers, Game and Watch, Kid Icarus, and Pikmin only get one slot each since they each only have one character/ensemble-of-characters-working-in-concert that's suitable for a fighting game.
  • Given the evidence against there being any other Sonic or Metal Gear characters, I think it's safe to assume any visiting franchise can only have 1 slot.

Even more speculative:

Based on those assumptions that gives 34 characters total. I'm expecting the real total to be 32 or 36. Why? Because it's harder to make the character selection screen look good with other numbers of characters.


Interesting analysis, but I have a few issues.

1.) Mario certainly is not guaranteed a 5th character. Yoshi and Wario are their own franchises remember. Mario really doesn't have any good options for a 5th either. Geno would be the best, and all rights to Geno are owned by Square, so Nintendo would have to fight for him...

However, that said, looking at the video now, I'd say there are in fact 5 spots per sticker page. The fact that there were only 4 Pokemon though despite there being 5 spots knocks out Mewtwo completely.

2.) Donkey Kong is far more popular than Star Fox or F-Zero now. March of the Minis sold 1.5 million copies, which is more than any SF or F-Zero games has sold since the N64. Diddy Kong Racing did great as well (too lazy to check, but it was over 1 million if I remember right). Sales aren't really the only factors here either. You have to think of where there are options for spots. K. Rool is a natural fit, and I consider him very likely.

3.) F-Zero has awful sales, but I agree Deathborn is possible, and I'll update him on my odds chart in a minute.

In general thoguh I think your logic is flawed. Sakurai will expand where he has options, not necessarily based on just popularity. Obviously Mario and Pokemon both had popularity and lots of options, but the other franchises are a free for all of filling spots where you find them. There isn't some sales analysis breakdown being done to determine these slots. They are being determined by viable characters to fill them.



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StarcraftManiac on 21 January 2008

F-zero is a player's choice title... It sold well over a million and as such is on par with the sales of a 3D metroid...



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thekitchensink on 21 January 2008

@Starcraft: As far as we know, Metroid only has one representative too (kind of 2 but they are the same character)



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naznatips on 21 January 2008
StarcraftManiac said:
F-zero is a player's choice title... It sold well over a million and as such is on par with the sales of a 3D metroid...

Gamecube titles only had to sell 250K units to qualify as player's choice.  Source http://games.ign.com/articles/453/453311p1.html

It never hit 1 million according to Nintendo's shipment charts.  F-Zero isn't that popular anymore.  Still, a second character is not out of the question.  



RCTjunkie on 21 January 2008

Am I the only one still hoping for WW Link?



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naznatips on 21 January 2008

Updated odds of entry list. Keep in mind these factors contributed to this: The fact that there only seem to be room for 5 characters per sticker suggests no more than 5 characters per franchise. This means that the Mario characters for example other than Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Bowser dropped way down in odds, because although Yoshi is technically his own franchise, he'll most likely share a spot with the Mario characters on franchise exclusive stickers.  Also keep in mind that we are still looking for a franchise to fill the last empty spot... hence Isaac's fairly high odds.

Confirmed:

Mario
Link
Kirby
Pikachu
Fox
Samus
Zelda
Bowser
Donkey Kong
Yoshi
Peach
Ice Climbers
Shiek
Pit
Wario
Zero Suit Samus
Ike
Pokémon Trainer
Diddy Kong
Meta Knight
Snake
Lucas
Sonic
King Dedede
Olimar

Unconfirmed (est. odds of entry)

Luigi (99%)
Captain Falcon (99%)
Ganondorf (99%)
Jigglypuff (99%)
Ness (99%)
Mr. Game and Watch (95%)
Marth (85%)
Falco (75%)
Y. Link (15%)
Roy (10%)
Mewtwo (1%)
Dr. Mario (1%)
Lucario (99%)
Krystal (85%)
K. Rool (85%)
Animal Crossing Villager (65%)
Isaac (60%)
Ridley (50%)
Mii (40%)
Geno (30%)
Balloon Fighter (30%)
Black Shadow (20%)
Baby Mario & Luigi (1%)
Tails (1%)
Robotnik (1%)
Knuckles (1%)
Raiden (1%)
Bowser Jr. (1%)

Other notes: Tails and Knuckles not being on Sonic's sticker lowered them to almost zero odds. The fact that they went down took Raiden down with them. Black Shadow is in instead of Deathborn because he has more history.  His odds are so low because the actual best candidate for a second F-Zero character was Goroh, and he became an Assist, which suggests no more for the series.  Any questions, feel free to ask.



Rhonin the wizard on 21 January 2008

naznatips said:

However, that said, looking at the video now, I'd say there are in fact 5 spots per sticker page. The fact that there were only 4 Pokemon though despite there being 5 spots knocks out Mewtwo completely.

I disagree. Mewtwo could still be in the game just not playable in the SSE or he could not have been unlocked. 

And the 5 spots per sticker thing is just speculation.

naznatips on 21 January 2008
Rhonin the wizard said:

naznatips said:

However, that said, looking at the video now, I'd say there are in fact 5 spots per sticker page. The fact that there were only 4 Pokemon though despite there being 5 spots knocks out Mewtwo completely.

I disagree. Mewtwo could still be in the game just not playable in the SSE or he could not have been unlocked.

And the 5 spots per sticker thing is just speculation.

It's very unlikely that this is not a build of the game with everything unlocked. If they were smart enough to play on a limited build for this demo then we never would have seen the characters in the first place. Mewtwo's odds remain very low.



Rhonin the wizard on 21 January 2008
naznatips said:
Rhonin the wizard said:

naznatips said:

However, that said, looking at the video now, I'd say there are in fact 5 spots per sticker page. The fact that there were only 4 Pokemon though despite there being 5 spots knocks out Mewtwo completely.

I disagree. Mewtwo could still be in the game just not playable in the SSE or he could not have been unlocked.

And the 5 spots per sticker thing is just speculation.

It's very very VERY unlikely that this is not a build of the game with everything unlocked.  If they were smart enough to play on a limited build for this demo then we never would have seen the characters in the first place.  Mewtwo's odds remain very very low.

While that's true. There's a possibility that in SSE the badguys (Wario, Bowser etc.) aren't playable. And I don't think we should write off a character that easily, a lot of people thought Ness wouldn't be in Brawl and look how that turned out.

 

About the rumours of 35 characters, I think that's a small number taking in consideration how long Brawl has been in development compared to Melee. 

Let's look at the confirmed veterans: 

Mario
Link
Kirby
Pikachu
Fox
Samus
Zelda
Bowser
Donkey Kong
Yoshi
Peach
Ice Climbers

Now newcomers:

Pit
Wario
Ike
Pokémon Trainer
Diddy Kong
Meta Knight
Snake
Lucas
Sonic
Kink Dedede
Pikmin & Olimar

Add to that Captain Falcon, Ganondorf, Jigglypuff, Luigi, Mr. Game & Watch, Ness and Lucario. And we have 30. I find hard to believe that there are only 5 characters we don't know about. 



L.C.E.C. on 21 January 2008
naznatips said:
takkxyz said:
Actually, considering how low the resolution is, that icon looks a lot more like the Pokemon Trainer

You can see Pokemon Trainer right below it. There is a very clear difference (lack of blue tipped hat).

Also, what L.C.E.C said DOES work. I just tried it: http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x31/naznatips/Videoproof.jpg

Ben can vouch that this screenshot was just taken a minute or 2 ago, without me possibly having enough time to edit this.


 OMG, naznatips uses Vista?