Never released ouside of Japan.

I agree about Ness though. I would be very sad if he wasn't in Brawl. I just don't want him to be as crappy as he was in Melee.

Yeah he was pretty sucktastic in Melee lol. I think Brawl will be better balanced though.

Why do people think Lucas will even make it in? I'm 99% sure Ness is in Brawl, and the 1% accounts for the possibility of a nuclear strike on Nintendo.

I thought of something... is smash bros basically Nitnendo's Halo now? It was pretty much GCN's savior (sold well throughout its life) Halo did this as well. Halo 3 is highly anticipated, will help 360, and make Microsoft alot of money. Halo 3 will have a good single player story, but its focus is the multilayer. Same can be said for brawl.
The only differences I can think of are
a) Halo is a trilogy (though they could conceivably make more, see Halo Wars), while smash bros is a potentially never ending series, like mario party.
b) Halo tends to have smash hit sales, then die down, but keep selling, while smash tends to have amazing legs, and sell forever. Considering Wii's fast growing player base, brawl is likely to sell more than Halo 3 has by the end of 2008, and then keep selling.
I am in no way trying to troll, I just think the similarites are uncanny.

The 'fanbase' for Ness is the Mother fanbase, and the mother fanbase DOES want Lucas. The fanbase for Earthbound is very small(reason why Nintendo won't localize Mother 3, after dissapointing sales of Earthbound). The Mother fanbase is much larger, and I am pretty sure they want some Mother 3 love.

You do know that Lucas was going to replace Ness in Melee, right?
Sakurai was willing to cut Ness before, I don't see why he wouldn't now.

The "Franklin Badge" is from Mother 3. The game is obviously being represented more in Brawl(Mother 3 would have been represented in Melee, had it not been delayed.. Ness technically replaced Lucas in Melee.)

Like I said, unless they both make it in, Ness is out.

Who do you think should be on the cover of brawl? I think they should have
Link
Pikachu
Mario
Sonic (if he is not in Nintendo is stupid)
Wario
Animal Crosser
Fox (small, in background)
ness (in pic on back)
Marth (in pic on back)
Snake
Samus (on back cover)
Yoshi (on back cover)

Samus does not go on the back cover!

Unless it's like...the WHOLE back cover...then maybe.

They'll have all of the initially available characters on the cover somewhere, and probably have four of the most recognisable character duking it out in the center. Sorta like Melee.

Or maybe they'll get more creative this time? Who knows. =P

You would be correct, except you're not taking into account 12+ million Smash Bros players that have played with Ness...many of whom would be upset if Ness was out.

There are probably more Ness fans from Smash alone than the Earthbound and Mother games. He is a Mother character, but also a Smash Bros character.

I've got at least 5 friends who always play as Ness and probably have never heard of Earthbound or Mother...he's just Ness to them.

Also...after looking through the first music update, the one with all the composers, I keep thinking of the character possibilities.

The Pikmin music composer is onboard, so Captain Olimar with Pikmin a possibility? Definitely...though the guy also made Star Fox music, so yeah...

Killer7 music composer though? Come on...a Killer 7-ified level would rock...it's unlikely, but still, I can hope.

And a couple composers for Wii-themed music? Could it be for a Wii-themed stage, or Mii characters? That would rock...