Could you imagine it? Nintendo has said for a hwile now that at E3 they'd have a game that'd be both hardcore and mainstream. Kid ICarus has gotten to a point it's pretty much expected. People think maybe there'll be an announcment for Pikmin 3 or Animal Crossing Wii as well. But what if they're super secret thing kept completely under wraps is a big announcement of Earthbound 4? (I imagine they'd number it the way Final Fantasy does now--respect the Japanese numbering. Though since it's Earthbound in America, hey, maybe not. Earthbound 2 it might be)

That would be so freaking fantastic, and be one of the last pieces Nintendo could give its system in terms of genre. They've provided the Wii with platforming (SMG), action (TLOZ:TP), FPS/adventure (MP3), fighting (SSBB), kart racing (MKWii), sports (a whole bunch), now, they could give us a great, sprawling RPG. Obviously I'm not the only one drooling over this idea. Hopefully it's not just a pipe dream. Probably it is, but who knows? Why else put Lucas in Brawl if they're not testing the waters? That seems to be what they do with brawl. Put Marth and Roy in to get people interested in Fire Emblem. Put Pit in to get interest for a new Kid Icarus. Ness, sure, he was the WTF character in SSB. But Lucas? Why add another character from Mother if you're not at least thinking about expanding the franchise?

A guy can dream, at least. 

I think it'd suck. We didn't get Mother 3. What's the chance of getting Mother 4?

That'd be one of the coolest things ever :3 EVER. If I remember right there was some youtube video of them talking about if they're gonna make a Mother 4. And Shigesato said no, 3 was the last one ; ; Oh man though, anything related to Earthbound/Mother, first day buy :3 pre-order, following for months, blah blah fan blah fan stuff blah.

Mother 4 for wii would be the best announcement they could make for me.

Maybe they are and we just dont know about it.

Big announcement? Mother 4? You're kidding, right? Regardless of how much some people may like the series, it is far from being big. Either way, they've already said it would end with Mother 3. The reason they added Lucas in was most likely because they said they'd replace Ness with the Mother 3 protagonist in Melee, but ended up keeping Ness since Mother 3 got delayed all the time. So when Brawl came, they felt they should add Lucas after all, but also keep Ness since he'd been there for 2 games already.

Still, my answer to the question in the topic title is "Not very."

That would be awesome.

What is Mother?

Mother 4 would be about as big as Wario Land Shake, but fans of the series would love it.