Oh lord. This is a sad day, just as mas369 has said.
I haven't been here long, nor have I been at GameFAQs long, but over at GameFaqs they actually look smart.
In contribution to the discussion, I have something to add.
I have read the entire 27 pages to the point, so this is not repeated.
Does anyone recall how Sakurai put a little bottom of the stage selection for melee characters? Who's to say that even with a full page of characters, He won't put a button at the bottem for downloaded characters. So now you're going to say "BUT THEN ONLINE ZOMG PROBLEMS 4 PPL THAT DUN HAVE IT". Alright, picture this. Every time a new character is released, a Brawl System Update would be released along with it to remove conflict errors for people that haven't downloaded it. How would this work?
Simple, a new channel. As I call it, the "Brawl Channel" (Yeah, you like that name
).
In the menu, there would be 3 button. Download Characters, Brawl Data Update, and "Return to Wii Menu" (You like that too XD ). In the "Download Characters" menu, a list of characters available for download will be presented. Each character could be, say 200 Wii points. That's 2$, not much. Now with a bandwagon of players, in this case, Mewtwo or Roy, let's put that it up at say, 500,000 downloads. Multiply that by 2, and Nintendo makes a easy million dollars. But that's just a small number. Consider how many copies of Brawl will be sold.
The second option, "Brawl Data Update", would do exactly like the name implies. Check for new updates, the new characters, and store them on your Wii or an external hard drive/SD card. With these updates, you will still be able to play online and play a match against the characters you don't have without any conflict. And to prevent Gamesharkers or ActionReplayers to access the data without paying for it, there would be some kind of lock, that prevents GS or AR from accessing it. Say, a pass code encrypted into Brawl's data. Seeing as the data would be external, GS or AR wouldn't normally be able to access it anyway.
And lastly, the "Return to Wii menu" option. Do I need to explain this? XD
The channel itself would be under the "WiiWare" category in the Wii Shop channel. The channel itself is free, but the channel itself uses the Wii points to download your characters.
Storage space? External hard drive or a SD card. No problems there.
Also, Nintendo reps have stated that DLC will work on the Wii. Why not start here? I can expect the same thing for Mario Kart Wii, Only with a "MKii Channel" (You LOVE that XP )
Friends, this is just my personal opinion, but it also might be the most logical path of action if DLC will be a feature. It would also explain why IGN and other reviewers with the english version don't see the light. There could be a little string of code somewhere that would read something like "CHECK_DATA : IF RESULT = TRUE = DISPLAY "DwnldCharacters" FALSE = NODISPLAY"
Well, I've given you all something to chew on. Discuss. All we can do it wait.