I was rewatching the Direct and saw, right as "'SMASHDOWN" appeared on-screen, eight fighters in the screenshot displayed in the background.
I want to point out that those background screenshots have been relevant before that in the Direct: you could see the health next to the fighters' icons when Sakurai mentioned health matches; then Sheik and Falcon were duking it out in a duel, which was in reference to a round of the Tourney mode.
8-player matches (or matches with 5, 6 or 7 players) are no longer treated as a separate feature; you can have those on ALL 103* STAGES now, so it makes sense that including them in Special Smash (which Smashdown is a part of, according to the website) would pose no problem whatsoever. Hence why Smashdown works as a sub-section of Special Smash, but Squad Strike doesn't.
And last but not least, Sakurai didn't explicitly mention four players during the Direct. So I firmly believe that Smashdown will be playable with ANY number of characters, from 2 to 8. Said number would be changeable at will by the players. And as more options are selectable within this new mode, the potential of Smashdown is increased exponentially, for it adds even more variety to Smash friendlies at home than the tremendous amount we have already witnessed in Ultimate thanks to the various modes and settings introduced earlier this month.
*as of this day
I want to point out that those background screenshots have been relevant before that in the Direct: you could see the health next to the fighters' icons when Sakurai mentioned health matches; then Sheik and Falcon were duking it out in a duel, which was in reference to a round of the Tourney mode.
8-player matches (or matches with 5, 6 or 7 players) are no longer treated as a separate feature; you can have those on ALL 103* STAGES now, so it makes sense that including them in Special Smash (which Smashdown is a part of, according to the website) would pose no problem whatsoever. Hence why Smashdown works as a sub-section of Special Smash, but Squad Strike doesn't.
And last but not least, Sakurai didn't explicitly mention four players during the Direct. So I firmly believe that Smashdown will be playable with ANY number of characters, from 2 to 8. Said number would be changeable at will by the players. And as more options are selectable within this new mode, the potential of Smashdown is increased exponentially, for it adds even more variety to Smash friendlies at home than the tremendous amount we have already witnessed in Ultimate thanks to the various modes and settings introduced earlier this month.
*as of this day