1. I don't think Sakurai cares about how relevant a franchise is.
2. Clones gradually get decloned.
3. Re-adding Falco and Toon Link is a lot easier than making a character from scratch. According to Microsoft, it costs 4 times as much to add a new client than keep an old client. That same principle can be used in something artistic like creating video games. Also, Falco is only a few moves away from being totally original.
But that seems absurd, you still have characters with similar moves rather than very original diverse characters, and the progress of finally getting a unique character is long, look at Luigi for example, he still has ways to go before he's totally different from Mario.
Now compare this to the BlazBlue or Guilty Gear casts where EVERY character is very different from the rest of the cast. No two characters play ANYTHING alike.
But one of the 4 cut characters was original. Also, all the returning Melee clones became more original. Lucas has literally 3 moves that Ness has. And like I said, creating something from scratch is harder, more expensive, and more time consuming than merely fixing something up.
Yes, but at the same time, being to conservative from game to game makes the games get stale, likewise, you begin to really limit your options for future installments when you try too hard to make the "perfect" game that satisfies all the fans.
Sakurai doesn't care about percentages of the roster, but the quality of the characters. Also, Mewtwo is the most wanted character not in Brawl. He's wanted more than newcomers. Sales will suffer if Sakurai doesn't re-add him.
You mean like the sales for WindWaker suffered? I think this is an exaggeration, a character omission is no reason to skip out on a game, you can always pick up a new one. Any fan who thinks this way needs to stop being so entitled.
This is kinda my opinion with the Lucas/Ness thing: it's kinda like merging Link with Marth. Just because they have swords doesn't make them the same. They both are better separate. Plus, the likelihood of this being broken is extremely high, especially since they can approach you two different ways. The fact that the IC have the same moves is what makes it work so well.
Comparing Link to Marth is absurd though, they both play VERY differently, and there's no way to make them "fuse" properly. Lucas and Ness on the other hand, both have the same playstyle and both are rather mediocre, not only that, but their move work well with each other, so why not replace the weaknesses of one, with the strengths of the other to make them a decent character?
Also, on Diddy and Dixie, why not explore a different concept than the IC, one where they use different moves and can have Duo Partner moves? There's always room for creativity...
Smash Bros. isn't just a fighting game, unlike BlazBlue, SF, Tekken, SC, etc. It is Smash Bros. It's part party game, part shooter, and it is totally character-driven. Also, Sakurai has stated that he felt Snake and Sonic were "incredible" additions to the roster, and added a lot of uniqueness to the roster.
"shooter??"
Yeah, and other 3rd parties can be incredible too, Link was an incredible addition to the Soul Calibur Roster, but he had his unfortunate leave eventually... It's a possibility, there's not reason to omit it.
Also, unlike SF-related games, Smash comes out every 5 years; you get a new SF-related game seemingly ever year, with multiple re-releases for each game (because Crap-com is too cheap to give you the full game). Also, replacing, re-adding, and replacing characters in games like SF is done for marketing's sake, and to keep the roster "fresh". If they wanted to give you the full game, they'd just fix up the old characters from previous games, and add them in, too. If you release a game every year, people get bored of the same roster. If you release a game every 5 years, you don't have that issue.
I don't think time is an issue... People are getting tired of Zelda and that comes out every 5 years, and the reason people are tired of it is because of the lack of diversity and ingenuity in the games (plus the difficulty drop).
Well here's the thing: Smash Bros is character driven. SF, MvC, BB, they could all basically have playable walking turds clones of Ryu (or as I call it, SF, especially SF Alpha), and you wouldn't notice. If you replaced Mario, Link, and Pikachu with freaking 20 different generic Ryu clones like SF does with their characters, sales would drop significantly. No one wants to play as original created characters in Smash.
It's not being lazy; it's being efficient, and maximizing the value, size, and diversity of the roster. On top of that, unlike a lot of SF games, the physics and gameplay (the basics aside) are totally different in each smash bros. games. Smash 64, Melee, and Brawl are all completely different, to the point where each of them have different engines and way different game speed and gravity. You turn on most SF games, including any Vs. game, and they have the same engines, about the same gameplay, and they "feel" the exact same. It's almost Madden-esk, in a sense, especially with the multiple versions of games like SFII, III, IV, and now even MvC3.
I get the feeling you don't play other fighters. Street Fighter 2 and the expansions all play very different from the Alpha series, which all have very different mechanics from the SF3 series, which all play opposite from the SF4 series. If you stop and play all four of them, you'll notice there are actually more differences among the four than there are in the Smash Bros games. The Super and AE and Turbo, and so on, all all arcade expansions because remember, these games come to arcades first and consoles second, arcade machines can be expanded on just fine, but in order to release the updates you need to either make it DLC (which they do) or make an expansion (which they also do), also, they're rather fair in the pricing, charging around $25 for the games rather than full price, if you wait a bit you can find it for $12. It's really less of a Jew move than Gamefreak releasing two opposite Pokemon versions side by side, only to release the polished and complete expansion game 2 years later.
The same thing can be said about BlazBlue, not only are future installments added for the story, Arcsys also takes the time to make sure each game plays differently from the last revamping all the characters and adding new ones in. One of BB's biggest selling points is the story, Arcsys could very well just bank on that and the fanservice, add a couple newbies in and call it a day, but they actually take the time to add, remove and even change mechanics withing each installment.
Also, SF has less clones than Smash.
Ryu = Fox, Falco=Ken, Wolf=Akuma
SF adds Dan as a Joke and Gouken as a Falcofied clone of Akuma... sort of, not really, but w/e.
Then in Smash you also have:
Link>Y/Toon Link
Ness>Lucas
Falcon>Ganon
etc...
Smash actually has more clones.
Lastly, MvC IS character driven. It's another All-Star Mashup, I don't understand how it differs from Smash aside from the fact that Smash isn't an arcade game.
tbrawl: :wolfbrawl: :toonlinkbrawl: :lucariobrawl: 
