A question I have been wondering for a while is could SmashBros take on Halo3. SmashBros games in the past have been just as successful or in Smash64's case more successful then Halo's titles on average. This is because Smashbros has almost all of Nintendo's core demographics covered through the utalization of all of Nintendo's properties simultaneously.
So what enabled Microsoft to sell so many copies of Halo3 so quickly? Hype and Microsoft's superb marketing skills. Microsoft used their hype machine and started hyping Halo3 back at E3 last year and have been pushing it ever since. With press conferances regularily released trailers and massive ad campaigns having been carried out on a regular basis.
So could Nintendo match this success I believe it is very possible if Nintendo changes their strategy from one of secracy to one of publicity. Rather then simply releasing limited info on their SmashBros.com website Nintendo could hold a mini-conferance every week or two. Announcing a new character every week or two and hyping it up on TV and in store.
Releasing a demo edition for the press like next month would give Nintendo an opertunity to hype Brawl up beyond belief as all of the magazines would shift their attention over to Brawls hype. If Nintendo was to show off a ton of info on the online network with a playable online demo for press and unleashed a butt load of footage Brawl would gain an unstopable momentum.
Lastly the main ingrediant to Halo's success was pre-orders Nintendo could begin offering incentives for people who pre-order now months in advance. Essentially if Nintendo utalizes all of its press power, publically offers pre-order incentives and uses the Nintendo hype machine to its fullest as well as make large quantities of software availible day one could they over take or match Halo3's success. Keep in mind Brawl is releasing right before Christmas which should give it a major advantage boost in sales!
-JC7
"In God We Trust - In Games We Play " - Joel Reimer