News IGN: No plans for a new Smash Bros. and best to not assume there always will be

[Galgavias]

There's definitely an argument that leaving the series alone for a bit will be good from the prospective of freshening up the roster. In six to eight years there'll be new IPs to choose from, new favourites in established series, and new third party partnerships struck. I've said before it might be good for Smash to 'Third strike' its roster and refocus on a smaller group of predominantly newer icons to keep things fresh. Waiting for a new generation of characters that a future Smash can pull from may be a smart move.

In the end I think Nintendo won't want to wait long for the next Smash, and for all this talk, I don't think fans will want to wait long either. You can look at Mario Kart 8 for a similar situation in which its been seven and a half years since its original release with no sequel in sight. Despite a Deluxe edition and mobile game launching in the intervening time, fans are now beginning to seriously itch for a new one. Even if a complete edition of Ultimate launches on the next Nintendo console, I give it five years before fans start to ask where the next one is.

 

[BGBW]

In no way is a game that's primary focus is fan service better off by having less fan service.

There's a reason they include things like music, trophies, spirits and whatnot - so they can shove in as much fan service as possible.

 

[Brock Reiher]

I hope Sakurai gives the next Smash the time it needs. It feels like Brawl was the last time he was actually ambitious and had an idea he wanted to realize. I'm okay with waiting until that inspiration strikes again so we can get another game as great as Melee/Brawl.

 

[Mekanos]

feel like adding weird nintendo characters only ramped up until at least ultimate.

smash 64 has:

• ness
• captain falcon

melee added:

• ice climbers
• marth
• roy
• mr game and watch

brawl added:

• lucas
• r.o.b.
• pit

smash 4 added:

• dark pit
• duck hunt
• little mac
• palutena
• shulk
• wii fit trainer

ultimate added:

• piranha plant

there are arguably some other names you can toss in as well as the fun/obscure nintendo characters label is a bit subjective. but it wasn't nothing, that's a sizable chunk of the roster. just was bummed out the initial ultimate roster didn't have more and would love for them to keep making deep cut picks. (again i prefaced this with knowing that i'm in the minority, most people would rather see sephiroth than chorus kids, i get that).

Several of those characters are clones or semi-clones so I don't think it's quite the same as they're thrown in as a bonus for relatively less development time. Several others I wouldn't think of as weird/deep cuts. I definitely wouldn't consider Marth an obscure Nintendo character given that Fire Emblem had been getting games in Japan for a decade and Marth was almost included in Smash 64 as well. Little Mac had a successful game on the Wii, Xenoblade was a highly praised game and Shulk was a popular request (not to mention the campaign to localize Xenoblade), and Palutena was a major character in a successful 3DS title, and so on. I don't really think of those as obscure deep cut characters comparable to say, Ice Climbers.

By these standards I feel like Min-Min or Pyra/Mythra would count, even though most would consider them to be coming from flagship Switch titles.

 

[DumbDonkey]

I hope Sakurai gives the next Smash the time it needs. It feels like Brawl was the last time he was actually ambitious and had an idea he wanted to realize. I'm okay with waiting until that inspiration strikes again so we can get another game as great as Melee/Brawl.

I find it really odd to claim he hasn’t been ambitious since Brawl when Ultimate is probably one of the most ambitious games out there

 

[tender]

Several of those characters are clones or semi-clones so I don't think it's quite the same as they're thrown in as a bonus for relatively less development time. Several others I wouldn't think of as weird/deep cuts. I definitely wouldn't consider Marth an obscure Nintendo character given that Fire Emblem had been getting games in Japan for a decade and Marth was almost included in Smash 64 as well. Little Mac had a successful game on the Wii, Xenoblade was a highly praised game and Shulk was a popular request (not to mention the campaign to localize Xenoblade), and Palutena was a major character in a successful 3DS title, and so on. I don't really think of those as obscure deep cut characters comparable to say, Ice Climbers.

By these standards I feel like Min-Min or Pyra/Mythra would count, even though most would consider them to be coming from flagship Switch titles.

yah i mean like i said its very subjective what one would consider deep cuts. i would absolutely still consider min min and pyra/mythra semi obscure nintendo characters (ie they wouldnt have probably made it in as dlc if they were of similar stature in a third party capacity). my only point is i would very much prefer these kinds of picks over huge third party presences for the most part, not that nintendo would acquiesce.

 

[Heron]

If these kinds of quotes were coming from a sports star or famous actor ("oh jeez I don't know if I could possibly do this all over again..."), everyone would see them as contract negotiations. Which is probably what they are.

He knows there'll be another one. He just wants Nintendo to know that he's good either way, so if they want another Sakurai classic they'll have to pay the big bucks.

Or perhaps he's just managing expectations, which is also never a bad idea.

 

[MondoMega]

I believe this as much as I believe Tom Holland denying Tobey and Andrew's appearances in No Way Home.

In no way is a game that's primary focus is fan service better off by having less fan service.

There's a reason they include things like music, trophies, spirits and whatnot - so they can shove in as much fan service as possible.

and yes, this. Guess i'll be quoting this again; from an interview with Iwata reprinted in Ask Iwata:

As new titles were added to the Super Smash Bros. series, the cast of characters grew and new modes were introduced, so that each installment boasted an exceptional volume of content. In general, I think that making a game bigger is oftentimes not the way to make it better, but with Super Smash Bros. I see things differently. It felt right to squeeze as much in there as possible, like some kind of a bottomless vessel, the sort of game where quantity works.

He's absolutely right. Smash is a rare series that has been able to manage a large quantity of quality content over multiple installments; I don't see that changing.

 

[Brock Reiher]

I find it really odd to claim he hasn’t been ambitious since Brawl when Ultimate is probably one of the most ambitious games out there

I don't think so. it has a lot of characters in it, but so did marvel vs Capcom 2. you can tell the spark was gone after brawl, just look at Wii u/3ds.

 

[tender]

honestly if we just got an enhanced version of ultimate with trophies added ... i'd take it (and some new dlc i guess too).

 

[BGBW]

Trophies are nice, but honestly, spirits fulfiled the same purpose of something to collect for me, with the bonus of all the themed battles.

The area Ultimate was lacking in at launch was new stages so I'd love to see some new ones, especially ones that are independent of fighters so we can have more universes represented.