I know every character except the cat, guess your not a real gamer or you don't follow sony articles.

Those 5 being all from the same series. Diversity at it's finest! Granted they got lesser known ones like Nes, Pit and Mr. game and watch, captain Falcon, but yeah.

OT: Personally, I know all of them and I have played their games at one point or another, PaRappa and Fat Princess being the two exceptions. They have more people to add, even if it is the from the same franchises (villains, supporting cast etc.) or have gone multi-plat, but I assume they will come as DLC. It sucks that the roster was not bigger but what can you do? Still worth a $60 for an old Sony fanboy like me.

I only know 11 Characters off that list thats less than half :/

I think we can all agree that the roster lacks some Square.

The roster of PS All Stars shows off Sony's greatest strength and weakness.  On the one hand, Sony has constantly invested in new IPs.  Smash Brothers features very few characters from the GC era (Olimar, Lucario sort of, is that it?), whereas  Sony has a pretty nice variety of franchises they've created over the years.  Parappa and Spike from PS1 (and Daniel I think.  Dunno much about him really), Ratchet, Kratos, and Sly from the PS2, and Cole, Princess, Cole, and Sackboy from PS3 etc.  They've constantly been developing new IPs, and it shows in the roster.

On the minus side, Sony hasn't been really able to create the same kind of sustained franchises as Nintendo has.  While characters like Mario, Link, Samus, and Kirby have been relevant for 25 years or so, Sony's characters tend to have shorter lifespans.  Nariko seems like a one-off character, Parappa has been forgotten by all but the most diehard fans, and Daniel and Spike are pretty obscure by this point. 

Basically, Sony likes a constant rotation of fresh faces where Nintendo prefers to build on their past successes, which is why you see what you do in the rosters.  In a few short weeks, we'll see which strategy was better.

To simplfy further, is that even possible?

Obviously I'm talking about people who play video games, wtf else would I be talking about?

Most of them would not recognize most of this roster. That means, most PS3 owning gamers too, it's just common sense, these are not recognizable people, it's not hard to put yourself in the mind of the average person that owns a PS3...sheesh. Obviously there are hardcore types who will know all those characters, but the MAJORITY will not know more than half. That is very important for a game.

I mean the appeal of a fighter is it's characters or branding.

For me the problem isn't that I don't know the characters, it is that I don't really care to play as them. In smash I started out playing Mario. It just seemed like such a fun concept of beating up my favorite Nintendo characters.

Cross Up games are often used as advertisements for more obscure franchises. I have to thank smash for introducing me to Fire Emblem. It also introduced me to Kirby, which I found out I don't like. That is the fun of these kind of games.

In the original game I didn't know Samus, Falcon, Kirby, and Ness. I eventually started to main kirby as down b and up b seemed like really good strategies (don't hate, if you played back then you likely did the same.)

I said I know of them, so I've heard of them, but that is the extent of my knowledge :) I nevery played DMC on the PS2 and only played the demo on PSN, it didn't grab my attention, not my kind of game

My God a Weezy thread... The end of the world is coming... damn you Mayans :p