Woah! That really puts things into perspective! We'll probably be at 27 by E3 alone, not counting sheik, ZSS, or Pokemon Trainer. That really gives me hope that we'll at least be close to Brawl's roster. I was worried we'd barely beat Melee this time around, but this is really encouraging! We might end up with 36 slots, over 40 characters at this rate! Well, if they follow the same pattern as last time, that is, and have a lot of secret characters.

Alright, change me to yes. Sakurai did say he'd put unique characters as having priority over cloney characters.

No doubt, 100% in. He said they were having trouble implementing them into the 3DS version, which, you know, means they are implementing them.

i was doing research before on seeing who might be an unlockable+starter!

Anyway this list counts alll characters in the roster (sheik will be counted as Zelda only in SSBM+SSBB and So will ZSS+Pokemo trainer)

SSB~ Starters=8     Unlockable=4    Total=12    Newcomers=*All

SSBM~ Starters=14   Unlockable=11    Total=25   Newcomers=13   (*14 counting Sheik)

SSBB~ Starters=21 Unlockable=14   Total=35      Newcomers=15 (*18 counting all pokemon trainer+ZSS)

As for SSB4 its hard to say which of the characters will be unlockable. Luigi is shown but him and jigglypuff are the only 2 characters to be unlockable in every ssb game. Anyway i cant tell who will be starting or unlockable.

SSB~ Starters=??    Unlockable=??   Total=30+ Newcomers=5+

Imo the unlockable characters that are already revealed for SSB4 will be Luigi+Megaman *Sonic+Snake were both revealed but they were both not starting characters, thus whybi think mega man will be the same.

Yes! Ice Climbers FTW! Those kidsssss lol

Also found this... Totally forgot about it! Looks like a few will be back in the game :)

Three things I personally believe, but don't have any proof to back up.... just gut feelings:

Character totals from series will not be going down. So if Wolf or Falco get cut, they will likely be replaced by another Star Fox Rep. I don't know why I think this, especially because the number of Mario reps went down from Melee to Brawl (because of Dr. Mario.) I'm iffy on this one, but I think it makes sense.

Characters with completely unique move sets (except maybe Snake) are safe.

Characters that are the sole representatives of their series are safe.

Yes*

*I think SSB will end up being a DLC driven game. Certain niche characters being only available to players via DLC. This being one of them unfortunatly.

Yes, I think they will return.