Oh Boy! It's Tin Foil Hat Time! Let's Speculate the Wait Times.

[Fatmanonice]

One of the things that draws many of us to Smash Bros is the sheer amount of possibilities that can drive years worth of speculation. Some of the theories are downright crazy but, all in all, it's just in good fun so we're going to dig deep into the thing that drive Smash speculators up a wall: trying to figure out when the next major starting roster character update is going to be.

Posted below is the data for the updates for the Brawl Dojo site. While these patterns may eventually be proven to not be relevant to the current Smash site, it doesn't hurt to fiddle around with it since we still have more than half a year to wait anyways. Let's begin:

The Basic Statistics:


34 weeks
238 days
7 months and 24 days
25 individual character updates
.67 character updates a week (Slightly more likely to see one character update every other week than not)

The Updates (all are in 2007 except Olimar and Sheik):

Dojo Opens: May 23rd 2007

Mario- Wednesday May 23rd
Link- Wednesday May 23rd
Pit- Friday May 25th (2 days later)
Kirby- Thursday June 7th (13 days later)
Pikachu- Thursday June 7th (see above)
Fox- Monday June 11th (4 days later)
Samus- Friday June 15th (4 days later)
Wario- Wednesday June 20th (5 days later)
Zelda- Monday June 25th (5 days later)
Bowser- Tuesday July 3rd (8 days later)
DK- Thursday July 12th (9 days later)
ZSS- Thursday July 19th (7 days later)
Yoshi- Tuesday July 24th (5 days later)
Ike- Wednesday August 1st (8 days later)
PT- Monday August 13th (12 days later)
Peach- Friday August 17th (4 days later)
Diddy- Wednesday August 22nd (5 days later)
MK- Wednesday September 5th (14 days later)
Ice Climbers- Friday September 14th (9 days later)
Snake-Friday September 21st (7 days later)
Lucas- Monday October 1st (10 days later)
Sonic- Wednesday October 10th (9 days later) *delay announced, stalling begins*
King Dedede- Thursday October 25th (15 days later)
Olimar- Wednesday Jan 9th 2008 (75 days later)
Sheik- Wednesday January 16th 2008 (7 days later)

The Breakdown:

Longest wait between characters: 75 days (King Dedede to Olimar) then 15 days (Sonic to King Dedede)
Shortest wait between characters: 2 days (Mario/Link to Pit)

Longest wait between veterans: 123 days (Ice Climbers to Sheik) then 28 days (Peach to Ice Climbers)
Shortest wait between veterans: 4 days (Kirby/Pikachu to Fox) and (Fox to Samus)

Longest wait between Newcomers: 75 days (King Dedede to Olimar) then 29 days (Wario to ZSS)
Shortest wait between Newcomers: 9 days (Lucas to Sonic)

Average wait between character updates: about 11 days (about 8 if you remove outlier)
Average wait between veteran updates: about 24 days (about 13 if you remove outlier)
Average wait between newcomer updates: about 20 days (about 15 if you remove outlier)

Most common day for character updates: Wednesday (9 of 25 updates)
Least common day for character updates Tuesday (2 of 25 updates)

 

[Dr. James Rustles]

It never ceases to amaze me that things as mundane as wait times are regularly quantified by community members. Good job, anyway. This game has a different development cycle so I am not sure if adjusting for staff size will reflect a correlation of period length between reveals in the former and current dojo.

 

[SirGalvan]

We are getting a completely different approach to the dojo this time around so I dont think that anything of that you showed us will be used....

Thinking we will get characters once a month with mostly veterans shown, based off interviews so far it seems the developers want to keep more to themselves opposed to what they did with Brawl

 

[SpaceJell0]

I would take into account the 2014 release date that seems most unlikely that it will be delayed due to the Wii U's failing sales but I'll roll with this because it is really well thought out! Nice Job!

Unfortunately, I can't safely say myself who the next newcomer is, but as for veterans...either Yoshi, Wario, King Dedede, or Diddy Kong as they seem the most "sealed in" and subject to change of the other Brawlers. Yoshi could get a speed and moveset buff, Wario could get WarioLand moves, Diddy Kong could get a graphical show-off of fur and raise his Down B speculation, and King Dedede could also show off a Return to Dreamlandish graphical update like Kirby and show off a speed buff of his hammer attacks ( not that he really needs it but he could become an all around good fighter)
Edit: these guys also seem the least likely to be an unlockable character

 

[Dr. James Rustles]

Unfortunately, I can't safely say myself who the next newcomer is, but as for veterans...either Yoshi, Wario, King Dedede, or Diddy Kong as they seem the most "sealed in" and subject to change of the other Brawlers.

I think they are just going to keep rolling with major franchise characters and then start over with Mario's or something. That's the only safe pattern so far (that I can think of) aside from reveals alongside releases like Pikmin 3.

 

[SpaceJell0]

I think they are just going to keep rolling with major franchise characters and then start over with Mario's or something. That's the only safe pattern so far (that I can think of) aside from reveals alongside releases like Pikmin 3.

A good thing to note as well is which characters needed a boost from Brawl because Sakurai might want to show off a more balanced character like Bowser. So we can expect some of the more underwhelming characters to show up more powerful than before.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Thinking we will get characters once a month with mostly veterans shown, based off interviews so far it seems the developers want to keep more to themselves opposed to what they did with Brawl

See, I once thought the same thing too but there are still a lot of veterans that are practically guaranteed to return and be in the starting roster:

1. Yoshi
2. Peach
3. Zelda
4. Sheik
5. Ice Climbers
6. Wario
7. Diddy
8. ZSS
9. Metaknight
10. King Dedede
11. Lucas or Ness
12. Ike or Marth

This, of course, doesn't include the other newcomers aside from Villager and WFT that are likely to be in the starting roster.