I'm wondering if Sukarai is going to utilize the wi-fi or online somehow to keep some unlockables hidden until the game launches.

IE: When you buy the game after launch it prompts for an update which will allow more characters to be unlocked.
or
They have left a backdoor where they can add characters via Wi-Fi
or
You have to play x number of games online
or
They release a download after the game releases

The obvious problem with that is not everyone has internet, but they are trying to promote it in Japan and that'd be a hell of an incentive for a lot of people.

The benefit is no one could reveal all the characters early.

A few things.

First: He said most characters would be unlocked through subspace emissary. This was misinterpreted. What he was saying was that was the way most of the unlockable characters would be unlocked, not that more than 50% of the characters in the game were unlockable.

Second: All characters to this point have not been unlocked in Subspace Emissary. Marth was unlocked by beating Classic Mode on normal. Wolf, the only missing character, has yet to be unlocked as well.

Third: The character list (seen here: http://img111.imageshack.us/img111/2228/rosterthusfaral8.jpg ) is completely out of space except for one spot. This is pretty important, because when that one spot is filled by Wolf, in between Dedede and Lucario, the list will be pushed to the right, Bowser down to the bottom row, and EVERY character will be lined up perfectly by franchise. Do you really think this would happen in an incomplete list, and if it would happen in an incomplete list, why didn't the list ever line up by franchise before?

Fourth: It's just too much to ask for the 35 character roster to be coincidence. Every single character, even down to the unlikelies like ROB. Clearly there was real insider information here. You guys may not have used the internet before Melee, but I did, and the full Melee roster was revealed on gamefaqs months before release as well. No one believed it though because they thought Game & Watch was ridiculous (Similar to R.O.B.'s effects on the perception of this leak).

The rules of Melee do not apply to this game. You know why we got less surprises? Because we sacrificed surprises for hype. That was the purpose of the dojo. We were given the privilege of massive amounts of pre-release information about this game, but you don't get benefits without sacrifice. The sacrifice in this case was the surprise of the newcomers, most of whom were revealed on the website.

The character increase in this game was 1 more net gain than Melee was to the original Smash, but because 4 old clones were removed, it was actually a total of 15 brand new characters, and 16 if Toon Link turns out to have a different move set from Young Link. The issue is people simply had unrealistic expectations for the amount of characters who would be in this game. I have been predicting 35-40 for good reason... because it's about the same increase that Melee was to Smash 64. However, IMO we got a lot more quality for our quantity this time, and I wish others could see that rather than constantly demanding more out of this game.

 I don't think anyone is disappointed or worried, most of us are perfectly happy with the roster, we're just wondering if there's more to unlock.

It would be cool, if there was more, but I'd be cool with it if there wasn't.

And the original super smash bros. had 12 characters, not 18-20.

@naz - I don't think anyone's unhappy, the game is AMAZING!! If 34 is all there is we'll all buy and love the game just the same.

We're just speculating because it seems odd.

You may be right they sacrificed surprise for hype and basically put all new characters in the Dojo.

Still, everytime we've thought we'd seen it all, Sukarai has come out and surprised us with something even better than we imagined/hoped. For the unlockables to be merely the same as Melee goes against that. In the end, that's probably the case, and so be it, but he's surprised us before, many times, so one more surprise wouldn't be, um, surprising.

People just have to stop expecting surprises at some point... surprises have to stop eventually, and when the game info was leaked, that was the time hehe.  Lucario and WW Link were pretty big surprises to me (although I discovered Lucario earlier because of a messed up video).  Ness returning was a pleasant surprise too, and R.O.B. was out of nowhere.  If I hadn't been hovering over every accidental leak I wouldn't have expected more than half of the unlockables that we actually got, and I doubt anyone here would have been.  

 Same here I was 25% happy when Lucas was shown, then 50% happy with Sonic and finally became 100% happy when I saw Ness, I see the 35 character thing but it just seems like there could be more.

With 34, 40 o 50 characters, this game is the image of PERFECT

I think all it is, is that it's over. For almost a year we've agonized over every detail, speculated, argued, wondered and fantasized. Now it's over. Depressing.

The final product is insane, it's awesome, it's incredible, beyond anything we originally would've imagined. But now all that's left is waiting. There is only a small bit left to speculate over, only the smallest glimmer of hope that there might be more characters. Even though it's amazing, it's still sad.