The Official Thread For the Sal Romano/Gematsu Leak

[Bowserlick]

I think that if the leak stated that Wii Fit Trainer, Villager, Megaman, Mii, Little Mac, and Pac-Man will show up at E3 AND only Little Mac, Megaman, and Pac-Man (or perhaps Mii) were revealed THEN I think the rumor would be tossed aside much more easily.

But Villager was rejected as an idea by Sakurai for Brawl and almost no one guess Wii Fit Trainer. The existence of both together do tend make the rumor more viable then if they were not two of the three revealed at E3.

 

[SmashChu]

But Villager was rejected as an idea by Sakurai for Brawl and almost no one guess Wii Fit Trainer. The existence of both together do tend make the rumor more viable then if they were not two of the three revealed at E3.

This is the text book definition of Confirmation bias.

A lot of people said Villager. He wasn't an unpopular choice, just that when people brought it up, others said it wouldn't happen. There is evidence that WFT has been brought up before, and that's only threads about the character. And, of course, many people said Mega Man and Villager would happen.

Your opinions are the result of years of paying attention to information which confirmed what you believed while ignoring information which challenged your preconceived notions.


Source: EIL

Have you ever had a conversation in which some old movie was mentioned, something like “The Golden Child” or maybe even something more obscure?

You laughed about it, quoted lines from it, wondered what happened to the actors you never saw again, and then you forgot about it. Until…

You are flipping channels one night and all of the sudden you see “The Golden Child” is playing. Weird. The next day you are reading a news story, and out of nowhere it mentions forgotten movies from the 1980s, and holy ****, three paragraphs about “The Golden Child.” You see a trailer that night at the theater for a new Eddie Murphy movie, and then you see a billboard on the street promoting Charlie Murphy doing stand-up in town, and then one of your friends sends you a link to a post at TMZ showing recent photos of the actress from “The Golden Child.”

What is happening here? Is the universe trying to tell you something? No. This is called the frequency illusion.

Since the party and the conversation where you and your friends took turns saying “I-ah-I-ah-I want the kniiiife” you’ve flipped channels plenty of times; you’ve walked past lots of billboards; you’ve seen dozens of stories about celebrities; you’ve been exposed to a handful of movie trailers. The thing is, you disregarded all the other information, all the stuff unrelated to “The Golden Child.” Out of all the chaos, all the morsels of data, you only noticed the bits which called back to something sitting on top of your brain. A few weeks back, when Eddie Murphy and his Tibetan adventure were still submerged beneath a heap of pop-culture at the bottom of your skull, you wouldn’t have paid any special attention to references to it.

If you are thinking about buying a new car, you suddenly see people driving them all over the roads. If you just ended a long-time relationship, every song you hear seems to be written about love. If you are having a baby, you start to see them everywhere. When the frequency illusion goes from a passive phenomenon to an active pursuit, that’s when you start to experience confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias is a filter through which you see a reality that matches your expectations. It causes you to think selectively, but the real trouble begins when confirmation bias distorts your active pursuit of facts.

Wii Fit sold over 15 million copies and Animal Crossing Wild World over 11 million. It would make sense to have characters, or at least a lot of content, from those games. Just because you didn't think the character would be there doesn't mean no one did. And, with thousands of these predictions, someone was bound to get some of it right. Again, your looking though a lens which supports your beliefs.

 

[Dinoman96]

^And that, up there, is what I like to call hindsight bias. Neogaf had a roster competition thing and literally only one guy had Villager on their roster. No one had Wii Fit Trainer on their rosters.

For pete's sake, series like Animal Crossing were partially the reason assist trophies were even made.

 

[Spazzy_D]

I've stayed off of Smashboards all weekend and I'm about to get off again, but it's funny how many times I've read that people are supporting the leak because they want it to be true when it is NOT a very popular leak. I really want Shulk and Palutena but I dislike the idea of Mii and I'm sure most of the people who post here dislike at least one (usually 2-3) of the newcomers on the list. On the other hand, a lot of people are discrediting it JUST because it doesn't include some of their most wanted characters, and I've seen where that train of thought leads to back in the Pre-Brawl days.

 

[Deleted member]

Looks like you were right after all.

I'd be curious to see a source on this if you could find it. Also, would it be possible to be both outside and inside drifting in a Mario Kart game?Fixed or at least I think I did.

There's no real "source" about the outside drift; it's just analysis people have made in regards to drifting with bikes; Mario Kart Wii had bikes that did inside drift (which were considered somewhat cheap) and bikes that did outside drift.
Of clips that were shown of the game, it appears that the returning bikes that did inside drift are now doing outside drift.


....though this probably isn't the thread for that.




EDIT: With the above hindsight bias, it's only a matter of time before BKuppa comes in with Brash the Bear again.

 

[Deleted member]

There's no real "source" about the outside drift; it's just analysis people have made in regards to drifting with bikes; Mario Kart Wii had bikes that did inside drift (which were considered somewhat cheap) and bikes that did outside drift.
Of clips that were shown of the game, it appears that the returning bikes that did inside drift are now doing outside drift.


....though this probably isn't the thread for that.




EDIT: With the above hindsight bias, it's only a matter of time before BKuppa comes in with Brash the Bear again.

Yeah I'd agree, at this point, it belongs more in the social thread.

 

[Bowserlick]

Leaks usually happen. This leak seems plausible among the other leaks. No character on the leak is an assist trophy yet. Out of the eleven, five are confirmed (even if the pokemon one is weak).

I think this leak is real.

 

[ChikoLad]

Just an idea, but "Pokemon from X/Y" could have been written that way to protect Salromano's/his leaker's identity. Whether they called it 'Greninja' or 'Gekkouga' would give a hint as to their physical location. It's already been stated in the OP that Salromano has enough trouble with people begging for information via PM. There are plenty of weirdos out there that might be determined enough to try and show up at his door.

Looking at the rest of the leaks, the only other character this might have happened with is Mega Man / 'Rock Man' - but I don't think Japan calls him that anymore in recent games, am I right?

Honestly, Shulk sticks out for me more than Chorus Men. We've had a history of oddball characters in each game (R.O.B., G&W, arguably Jiggly), and for this iteration I wouldn't count Villager or WFT as the wildcard - both of them have wildly popular series, even if we're not the crowd who plays Wii Fit. There's more precedent for Chorus Men than there is for Shulk, who is a very recent acquisition, and another sword fighter (seriously, I think it would get pretty hard to have so many sword fighters with totally original movesets). That said, Xenoblade was indeed unprecedentedly popular, and is the only video game I can recall ever having so much demand they had to bring it back into print.

So, while I have my doubts, they actually aren't very strong doubts. After reading through everything everyone's had to say, I'd consider myself a supporter of this leak.

A few things are wrong here.

-If I was "leaking" this, and wanted to protect my identity while still being credible, I would just say "Greninja/Gekkouga", or even add more different region names in. Just saying "Pokémon from X/Y" leaves a LOT of room for doubt no matter what way you look at it. At the very least, he could have described the Pokémon, in which case, all he had to say was "the one who uses his tongue as a scarf".

-Mega Man is still referred to as Rock Man in Japan. Sakurai himself even calls him Rock Man.

-Sakurai has outright said Wii Fit Trainer is the oddball character. He said nobody was asking for her, so he included her as the wild card.

 

[Gameboi834]

Honestly I feel like even if this guy is just good at guessing, he has a lot of safe, reasonable guesses. Basically all of the predicted characters are logical and could help boost both intrigue and sales.

 

[Morbi]

A few things are wrong here.

-If I was "leaking" this, and wanted to protect my identity while still being credible, I would just say "Greninja/Gekkouga", or even add more different region names in. Just saying "Pokémon from X/Y" leaves a LOT of room for doubt no matter what way you look at it. At the very least, he could have described the Pokémon, in which case, all he had to say was "the one who uses his tongue as a scarf".

-Mega Man is still referred to as Rock Man in Japan. Sakurai himself even calls him Rock Man.

-Sakurai has outright said Wii Fit Trainer is the oddball character. He said nobody was asking for her, so he included her as the wild card.

I always assert this; but I believe he was alluding to a Pokemon trailer. Rather than type out: every Pokeball Pokemon, Charizard, and Greninja... they merely stated "Pokemon" in the plural form.

 

[Deleted member]

Honestly I feel like even if this guy is just good at guessing, he has a lot of safe, reasonable guesses. Basically all of the predicted characters are logical and coukd help boost both intrigue and sales.

It's so much easier to claim the likes of Villager and Wii Fit Trainer were lucky guesses after they've been confirmed, isn't it?

 

[Morbi]

It's so much easier to claim the likes of Villager and Wii Fit Trainer were lucky guesses after they've been confirmed, isn't it?

Objectively, that is the only time to claim that they were lucky guesses.

Honestly I feel like even if this guy is just good at guessing, he has a lot of safe, reasonable guesses. Basically all of the predicted characters are logical and coukd help boost both intrigue and sales.

I am not sure that Chorus Men would boost sales, maybe intrigue, but even then... Wii Fit Trainer was supposed to do that. It didn't really work, or at least not initially.

 

[Bowserlick]

Some of these newcomers had very sparse character threads. Not even sure if Wii Fit Trainer had a thread at all.

Sakurai even said himself, that almost no one guess Wii Fit trainer.

 

[Gameboi834]

It's so much easier to claim the likes of Villager and Wii Fit Trainer were lucky guesses after they've been confirmed, isn't it?

The Wii Fit Trainer yes, but the Villager was pretty much a gjven for me, at least. I expected after the amount of attention City Folk got at E3 2008, in Brawl, and the overall prominence of Animal Crossing that a Villager character was basically guarenteed.
I think the lucky guesses are WFT and Chorus Men.

 

[papagenos]

It's so much easier to claim the likes of Villager and Wii Fit Trainer were lucky guesses after they've been confirmed, isn't it?

exactly.

its hindsight making people think these characters were "obvious". They weren't. its clearly a leak.

 

[Frostwraith]

On one hand, the fact that half of the characters appeared in the game with the Villager being previously dismissed as impossible by Sakurai himself and no one predicting Wii Fit Trainer makes the leak seem legit. It's a valid possibility.

On the other hand lies the other half of the characters, Little Mac, Pac-Man and Mii, who weren't shown, partially contradicting. Well, whether this debunks the leak or not is quite hard to determine.

To elaborate: the leak said that, at E3 2013, the six characters, Villager, Mega Man, Wii Fit Trainer, Little Mac, Pac-Man and Mii would be shown. What happened is that only the first three characters were. Does this make the leak instantly fake? Well...

If you assume the source got this information from when the development staff was planning what would be revealed on E3, there's always the possibility of team deciding of just showing the first three characters, saving the latter three for other occasions, like Little Mac.

Assuming this is fake and just a lucky guess, consider it damn lucky. First, there's the fact Sakurai had said that characters from Animal Crossing were unfit for the series. As such, no one expected the Villager showing up. Many people vouched for an AC character, no doubt, but the expectations were low. As for the Wii Fit Trainer, well, even Sakurai himself stated no one would guess her.

While the possibility of this leak being a guess exists, it seems hard to believe given the circumstances I just mentioned.

However, there's another possibility few people seem to consider: the leak is partially true, partially false. The inside information was just about the first three, but whoever leaked it decided to add three more characters to create confusion. The credibility of the leak would be damage and the leaker could get away with the same argument people use to defend it as false: the fact not all characters were shown. Hell, the leaker could even be trolling!

Fast forward to April 2014 and the same leaker reveals another bunch of information: on the Nintendo Direct, the following characters would be revealed: Shulk, Palutena, Chrom, Chorus Men and a Pokémon from X/Y. Of these five, only the last one was true, with Greninja being the revealed choice.

Pretty similar situation as above. Could be true, but the source got information from a different stage of planning and things eventually differed, it could be another lucky guess or it's once again partially true, partially false, which in this case seems an hard to believe hypothesis, but definitely not impossible. Nothing stops a leaker from distorting facts, after all. (Hell, I could say many journalists nowadays do this, but that's irrelevant to the subject at hand.)

What I mean to say is there are many ways to interpret this situation, which leads to different conclusions on whether the leak is true or false. I'm a bit skeptical about all this, although I think it's too much of a coincidence the leak mentioning both Villager and Wii Fit Trainer, characters that no one thought they would be in, yet they were revealed. It adds to the legitimacy of the leak, much like how the absence of the other character hurts it.

One last thing I want to say is how I believe there will be no way to fully determine the legitimacy of the leak. Even if a character is disconfirmed, there's the possibility of information having been added to the true information. Even if all characters are confirmed, there's the inconsistency of the reveal circumstances.

All in all, it's a matter of time. If the last outlandish character, the Chrous Men, is revealed, that will add a lot to the leak's credibility, notably, the first hypothesis I mentioned above (actually true information, but changes of plans before the reveals).

(Whew, this took a while...)

 

[Morbi]

The Wii Fit Trainer yes, but the Villager was pretty much a gjven for me, at least. I expected after the amount of attention City Folk got at E3 2008, in Brawl, and the overall prominence of Animal Crossing that a Villager character was basically guarenteed.
I think the lucky guesses are WFT and Chorus Men.

Villager was not an obvious choice for anyone that adamantly listened to Sakurai. One would assume that a reasonable leaker would not advocate for Villager as it wasn't interpreted as entirely feasible.

 

[Deleted member]

What does my personal belief have to do with my argument? You don't understand confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is when you try to make the data fit your hypothesis at the same time ignoring or rationalizing things that don't fit the theory. This is stuff like people ignoring the characters weren't at E3 when the rumor said they would. It's also a double standard because any other rumor would have been instantly thrown out. Instead, we have people who are trying to find out why characters weren't at E3 or why it was "Pokemon from X/Y" and not a specific character. You commit confirmation bias when you do not look at the facts objectively. I have not committed confirmation bias.

And yet your argument against the Salromano leak has been the definition of confirmation bias.

You've ignored the fact that no one has predicted Wii Fit Trainer seriously, which gives the leak credit. When people bring this up as an argument, you then proceed to add hindsight bias to your argument; arguing that sales were a major reason why Wii Fit Trainer was included in the game. The problem is, these are arguments that are being made after the confirmation of Wii Fit Trainer, not before. Beforehand, no one could come up with anything resembling a case for Wii Fit Trainer as playable and when Wii Fit Trainer was brought up, it was not in anything resembling people thinking Wii Fit Trainer would happens. That is confirmation bias.

He specifically said 6 characters were to be shown at E3, but three weren't. Also, as of April 27, 2014, only 6 characters have been shown. That right there puts a damper in it's credibility.

There are good reasons to believe that the information Salromano got was outdated. It explains why salromano said Animal Crossing Guy instead of Villager and why he did not specifically state a Pokémon from X & Y, because they had not decided on one yet.

 

[ChikoLad]

I always assert this; but I believe he was alluding to a Pokemon trailer. Rather than type out: every Pokeball Pokemon, Charizard, and Greninja... they merely stated "Pokemon" in the plural form.

But the leak is specifically referring to newcomer fighters, so it's not referring to Charizard and the Pokéball Pokémon at all. He meant whoever the newcomer Pokémon was. Which is why that's one of the points that throws me off. The rest of his list is very particular (Chorus Men specifically, which is from a niche franchise, so he had to have known what that franchise was). Yet suddenly, he gives the vaguest description for a Pokémon newcomer.

Assuming this information is coming from Sakurai's design documents, there is no way that document just said "I plan to put in a Pokémon from X/Y". All of the characters are concrete in these documents. Even if the guy didn't know who Greninja was (and Greninja is surely on that document), he just had to say the name. If the guy was identifying characters by pictures (the document was obviously in Japanese text, so if the leaker is not a Japanese speaker, their only possible method of identifying the characters listed is through pictures), he could have just described the character, and Greninja isn't hard to describe. People would know who he is immediately if he just put down a little description, and the stand out feature of Greninja's design is obviously his tongue-scarf.

You've ignored the fact that no one has predicted Wii Fit Trainer seriously, which gives the leak credit.

Actually, it doesn't. Because the fact is, Sakurai doesn't consult fan opinions for most character selections. There are very few exceptions to that rule. Therefore, Wii Fit Trainer being predicted means nothing. Maybe the leaker was aware of the fact that there is always a character nobody asked for in Smash Bros. With that in mind, a leaker could easily throw that character on the list, as it would actually help their credibility, because even if people doubted the character on a list of otherwise safe leaks, that one character could never be disproven until the game comes out. It's perfectly plausible to call it a lucky guess, especially with the other questionable areas of the leak.

 

[Captain Fun]

Regardless of the legitimacy of the leak (there are a number of legitimate reasons for doubt), I always think it's silly how some people downplay WiiFit Trainer, Mega Man and Villager as easy guesses. Alone, WFT is already and extremely rare pick, but along with Villager and Mega Man (who are by no means easy predictions either) that makes for a pretty compelling leak regardless if it's true or not.

What I'm getting at is that there are legitimate reasons to be in both camps here. Personally, I actually believed the leak 100% when it originally came out, but after the second round I didn't know what to think since there are characters I want on it. For me, it really is 50/50.

 

[Morbi]

On one hand, the fact that half of the characters appeared in the game with the Villager being previously dismissed as impossible by Sakurai himself and no one predicting Wii Fit Trainer makes the leak seem legit. It's a valid possibility.

On the other hand lies the other half of the characters, Little Mac, Pac-Man and Mii, who weren't shown, partially contradicting. Well, whether this debunks the leak or not is quite hard to determine.

To elaborate: the leak said that, at E3 2013, the six characters, Villager, Mega Man, Wii Fit Trainer, Little Mac, Pac-Man and Mii would be shown. What happened is that only the first three characters were. Does this make the leak instantly fake? Well...

If you assume the source got this information from when the development staff was planning what would be revealed on E3, there's always the possibility of team deciding of just showing the first three characters, saving the latter three for other occasions, like Little Mac.

Assuming this is fake and just a lucky guess, consider it damn lucky. First, there's the fact Sakurai had said that characters from Animal Crossing were unfit for the series. As such, no one expected the Villager showing up. Many people vouched for an AC character, no doubt, but the expectations were low. As for the Wii Fit Trainer, well, even Sakurai himself stated no one would guess her.

While the possibility of this leak being a guess exists, it seems hard to believe given the circumstances I just mentioned.

However, there's another possibility few people seem to consider: the leak is partially true, partially false. The inside information was just about the first three, but whoever leaked it decided to add three more characters to create confusion. The credibility of the leak would be damage and the leaker could get away with the same argument people use to defend it as false: the fact not all characters were shown. Hell, the leaker could even be trolling!

Fast forward to April 2014 and the same leaker reveals another bunch of information: on the Nintendo Direct, the following characters would be revealed: Shulk, Palutena, Chrom, Chorus Men and a Pokémon from X/Y. Of these five, only the last one was true, with Greninja being the revealed choice.

Pretty similar situation as above. Could be true, but the source got information from a different stage of planning and things eventually differed, it could be another lucky guess or it's once again partially true, partially false, which in this case seems an hard to believe hypothesis, but definitely not impossible. Nothing stops a leaker from distorting facts, after all. (Hell, I could say many journalists nowadays do this, but that's irrelevant to the subject at hand.)

What I mean to say is there are many ways to interpret this situation, which leads to different conclusions on whether the leak is true or false. I'm a bit skeptical about all this, although I think it's too much of a coincidence the leak mentioning both Villager and Wii Fit Trainer, characters that no one thought they would be in, yet they were revealed. It adds to the legitimacy of the leak, much like how the absence of the other character hurts it.

One last thing I want to say is how I believe there will be no way to fully determine the legitimacy of the leak. Even if a character is disconfirmed, there's the possibility of information having been added to the true information. Even if all characters are confirmed, there's the inconsistency of the reveal circumstances.

All in all, it's a matter of time. If the last outlandish character, the Chrous Men, is revealed, that will add a lot to the leak's credibility, notably, the first hypothesis I mentioned above (actually true information, but changes of plans before the reveals).

(Whew, this took a while...)

Just a minor inconsistency; the second situation isn't the same as the first leak. He wasn't proclaiming that all characters would be revealed during the Direct, he was merely asserting that those characters were in the game.

Another small notion that you may or may not have missed (depending on if you believe it to be viable), most believed the Pokemon roster would be the same (as Brawl) in addition to Mewtwo. There weren't many people advocating for a Pokemon from X and Y, or most that did believed a Mega Evolution would be sufficient. As such, Greninja adds validity to the leak. It was only in hindsight (mostly after the news that Pokemon Trainer was omitted) that many actually thought that his addition was obvious.

 

[Dinoman96]

Fast forward to April 2014 and the same leaker reveals another bunch of information: on the Nintendo Direct, the following characters would be revealed: Shulk, Palutena, Chrom, Chorus Men and a Pokémon from X/Y. Of these five, only the last one was true, with Greninja being the revealed choice.

That's wrong. Sal's tipper never said they'd be revealed in the Direct, only that they were generally in the game.

 

[Bowserlick]

Who thinks will will get a third leak from Sal? Maybe before E3?

Regardless, we should know the full roster soon with the 3DS version coming out this summer. Then again maybe characters will still be worked on for the Wii U version and included as free downloads for the 3DS.

 

[Frostwraith]

Just a minor inconsistency; the second situation isn't the same as the first leak. He wasn't proclaiming that all characters would be revealed during the Direct, he was merely asserting that those characters were in the game.

Another small notion that you may or may not have missed (depending on if you believe it to be viable), most believed the Pokemon roster would be the same (as Brawl) in addition to Mewtwo. There weren't many people advocating for a Pokemon from X and Y, or most that did believed a Mega Evolution would be sufficient. As such, Greninja adds validity to the leak. It was only in hindsight (mostly after the news that Pokemon Trainer was omitted) that many actually thought that his addition was obvious.

That's wrong. Sal's tipper never said they'd be revealed in the Direct, only that they were generally in the game.

Oops, my mistake.

Anyway, that changes things. Still, most of my arguments still apply, though only to the first six characters.

In this case, then, it's a matter of whether or not the second batch of characters is confirmed or not. The more are confirmed, the more credible the leak will be. That's for sure.

 

[ChikoLad]

Just a minor inconsistency; the second situation isn't the same as the first leak. He wasn't proclaiming that all characters would be revealed during the Direct, he was merely asserting that those characters were in the game.

Another small notion that you may or may not have missed (depending on if you believe it to be viable), most believed the Pokemon roster would be the same (as Brawl) in addition to Mewtwo. There weren't many people advocating for a Pokemon from X and Y, or most that did believed a Mega Evolution would be sufficient. As such, Greninja adds validity to the leak. It was only in hindsight (mostly after the news that Pokemon Trainer was omitted) that many actually thought that his addition was obvious.

Greninja adds no validity to the leak because as I already stated, Sakurai does not consult fan opinion for the majority of character selections. The leak contradicting fan expectations (and the game coincidentally doing it) means nothing, as fan expectations mean nothing. Saying an X/Y Pokémon would be in the game is the epitome of a safe bet, as there was already a trend of them promoting the latest game in a franchise in this installment. And even without that, Pokémon X/Y was a huge hit, so it's not surprising they'd pick a Pokémon from the game.

 

[Gameboi834]

Villager was not an obvious choice for anyone that adamantly listened to Sakurai.

That's why it was so obvious to me haha

I think at this point the community should probably always take what he says with a grain or two of salt. That Sakurai is a tricky one, he is.

 

[Dinoman96]

Who thinks will will get a third leak from Sal? Maybe before E3?

Regardless, we should know the full roster soon with the 3DS version coming out this summer. Then again maybe characters will still be worked on for the Wii U version and included as free downloads for the 3DS.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if that was all the newcomers.

What I find interesting is that the first leak had six characters. Then Rosalina was announced. Afterwards, we get the second leak with only five characters. Combine the eleven characters on the list with Rosalina and then you have 12 characters. I believe 12 newcomers total is a good sweetspot, as it's not too underwhelming (IE having only like five newcomers) or too overwhelming (IE adding nearly 20 newcomers, which is what Brawl did. That's insane).

EDIT:

Saying an X/Y Pokémon would be in the game is the epitome of a safe bet, as there was already a trend of them promoting the latest game in a franchise in this installment. And even without that, Pokémon X/Y was a huge hit, so it's not surprising they'd pick a Pokémon from the game.

Do the words "Mewtwo" ring a bell to you? If not...

You know what I find strange? All these people who are like "Well, a Pokemon from X/Y was BOUND to happen! It was totally obvious!"

See, that's the thing. What about this guy?

An "X/Y Pokemon" wasn't the safest bet for a 5th (or 4th if Lucario was to be replaced) slot. Most people considered that to be Mewtwo, a G1 Pokemon who is also a veteran. This was mainly due to all the attention Mewtwo was getting with X/Y. The most common expectation for the Pokemon lineup in Smash 4 was either:

or

I guess an X/Y Pokemon wasn't IMPOSSIBLE, but it's strange now that people are saying that Greninja/an X&Y Pokemon was a total shoo-in and everyone who thinks otherwise is crazy even though we were all expecting Mewtwo. Unless people were really expecting Pokemon to immediately jump to six slots while leaving Mario at five (Which, admittedly, could happen, as I still have Mewtwo on my roster, but still).

 

[Morbi]

Greninja adds no validity to the leak because as I already stated, Sakurai does not consult fan opinion for the majority of character selections. The leak contradicting fan expectations (and the game coincidentally doing it) means nothing, as fan expectations mean nothing. Saying an X/Y Pokémon would be in the game is the epitome of a safe bet, as there was already a trend of them promoting the latest game in a franchise in this installment. And even without that, Pokémon X/Y was a huge hit, so it's not surprising they'd pick a Pokémon from the game.

Sakurai doesn't, hypothetically speaking, the leaker or source... does. Therefore, their alleged guess objectively makes the leak more credible as it is something correct that isn't the popular opinion. I mean, if the leak was Ridley, King K. Rool, and Palutena... and we got all 3, you would most likely not believe that the leaker was correct as he just took the obvious popular opinions and put them in a "leak." Greninja IS a character similar to Wii Fit or Villager. If they add credibility to the leak, Greninja does. Otherwise, you have an overt contradiction in logic.

I am evaluating the leak, unbiased. I don't believe it is real or fake, I am just evaluating the facts.

 

[papagenos]

On one hand, the fact that half of the characters appeared in the game with the Villager being previously dismissed as impossible by Sakurai himself and no one predicting Wii Fit Trainer makes the leak seem legit. It's a valid possibility.

On the other hand lies the other half of the characters, Little Mac, Pac-Man and Mii, who weren't shown, partially contradicting. Well, whether this debunks the leak or not is quite hard to determine.

To elaborate: the leak said that, at E3 2013, the six characters, Villager, Mega Man, Wii Fit Trainer, Little Mac, Pac-Man and Mii would be shown. What happened is that only the first three characters were. Does this make the leak instantly fake? Well...

If you assume the source got this information from when the development staff was planning what would be revealed on E3, there's always the possibility of team deciding of just showing the first three characters, saving the latter three for other occasions, like Little Mac.

Assuming this is fake and just a lucky guess, consider it damn lucky. First, there's the fact Sakurai had said that characters from Animal Crossing were unfit for the series. As such, no one expected the Villager showing up. Many people vouched for an AC character, no doubt, but the expectations were low. As for the Wii Fit Trainer, well, even Sakurai himself stated no one would guess her.

While the possibility of this leak being a guess exists, it seems hard to believe given the circumstances I just mentioned.

However, there's another possibility few people seem to consider: the leak is partially true, partially false. The inside information was just about the first three, but whoever leaked it decided to add three more characters to create confusion. The credibility of the leak would be damage and the leaker could get away with the same argument people use to defend it as false: the fact not all characters were shown. Hell, the leaker could even be trolling!

Fast forward to April 2014 and the same leaker reveals another bunch of information: on the Nintendo Direct, the following characters would be revealed: Shulk, Palutena, Chrom, Chorus Men and a Pokémon from X/Y. Of these five, only the last one was true, with Greninja being the revealed choice.

Pretty similar situation as above. Could be true, but the source got information from a different stage of planning and things eventually differed, it could be another lucky guess or it's once again partially true, partially false, which in this case seems an hard to believe hypothesis, but definitely not impossible. Nothing stops a leaker from distorting facts, after all. (Hell, I could say many journalists nowadays do this, but that's irrelevant to the subject at hand.)

What I mean to say is there are many ways to interpret this situation, which leads to different conclusions on whether the leak is true or false. I'm a bit skeptical about all this, although I think it's too much of a coincidence the leak mentioning both Villager and Wii Fit Trainer, characters that no one thought they would be in, yet they were revealed. It adds to the legitimacy of the leak, much like how the absence of the other character hurts it.

One last thing I want to say is how I believe there will be no way to fully determine the legitimacy of the leak. Even if a character is disconfirmed, there's the possibility of information having been added to the true information. Even if all characters are confirmed, there's the inconsistency of the reveal circumstances.

All in all, it's a matter of time. If the last outlandish character, the Chrous Men, is revealed, that will add a lot to the leak's credibility, notably, the first hypothesis I mentioned above (actually true information, but changes of plans before the reveals).

(Whew, this took a while...)

This is ignoring that if he was faking, adding more characters on top of real characters, is extremely risky. if any of those characters are de confirmed he instantly loses all credibility.

so giving us MORE characters right before the 40 minute long direct full of info would be credibility suicide. if for instance palutena was shown to still be part of pits final smash, something that easily could have happened, he's have lost everything.

exponentially as more characters are added theres also more chances to be WRONG, which is why adding characters right before the direct is NOT something a faker would do but it makes sense that a REAL leaker would have possiblly just gotten a bunch of new info right before the direct as clearly info is floating around behind the scenes around that time.

its simplly more likely the leak is real than fake for many many reasons.

 

[ChikoLad]

Sakurai doesn't, hypothetically speaking, the leaker or source... does. Therefore, their alleged guess objectively makes the leak more credible as it is something correct that isn't the popular opinion. I mean, if the leak was Ridley, King K. Rool, and Palutena... and we got all 3, you would most likely not believe that the leaker was correct as he just took the obvious popular opinions and put them in a "leak." Greninja IS a character similar to Wii Fit or Villager. If they add credibility to the leak, Greninja does. Otherwise, you have an overt contradiction in logic.

I am evaluating the leak, unbiased. I don't believe it is real or fake, I am just evaluating the facts.

How sure are you that an X/Y Pokémon was unpopular?

I myself was fully expecting an X/Y Pokémon, and many were on the same boat after it came out, and even more so when Prism Tower was a revealed stage. And you're ignoring marketing trends as a viable research outlet for anyone fabricating a leak. Someone trying to create a safe bet could look at fan opinion/the most wanted - or they could look at actual marketing trends. So even if the community who make prediction rosters don't expect an X/Y Pokémon (and anyone who didn't was only doing so because they wanted someone like Mewtwo instead), the leaker could also recognise that many characters were directly promoting different games that had a release or an anniversary (which is another line of logic fan made rosters have been using).

And I never said Wii Fit Trainer and Villager added credibility to the leak, and I disagree with the notion. Salromano listed "Animal Crossing Guy", which is just as vague as "Pokémon from X/Y" (could have meant Tom Nook, for example). Wii Fit Trainer could have referred to either the male or female Wii Fit Trainer, which is again, playing it safe (and he got lucky in the sense that both sexes were included as skins).

 

[Deleted member]

Who thinks will will get a third leak from Sal? Maybe before E3?

Regardless, we should know the full roster soon with the 3DS version coming out this summer. Then again maybe characters will still be worked on for the Wii U version and included as free downloads for the 3DS.

Shortly before E3 2013 seems like a reasonable guess if you ask me. Salromano got his information from his tipper to reveal before E3 2013 and against right before the Smash Direct started. Since E3 2014 is going to be at least bigger than the Smash Direct, I would not be surprised that we may end up getting the last batch of characters at E3.

Of course it's also possible that we don't find out about the last batch of characters until the game release, so that has to be kept in mind as well.

Greninja adds no validity to the leak because as I already stated, Sakurai does not consult fan opinion for the majority of character selections. The leak contradicting fan expectations (and the game coincidentally doing it) means nothing, as fan expectations mean nothing. Saying an X/Y Pokémon would be in the game is the epitome of a safe bet, as there was already a trend of them promoting the latest game in a franchise in this installment. And even without that, Pokémon X/Y was a huge hit, so it's not surprising they'd pick a Pokémon from the game.

A 6th Gen Pokémon was absolutely not a safe bet by any means. A 6th Gen Pokémon blindsided the majority of the fan base and practically no one expected Gekkouga to be in either (I hadn't even heard of him before his confirmation). Most people expected just Brawl + Mewtwo (especially after Lucario's confirmation). When we found out that Pokémon Trainer was axed and Gekkouga was in, that threw most people into a loop. The vagueness of the description of a new Pokémon from X & Y doesn't help validate the leak, but it doesn't discredit it either, as again, the information was very likely outdated.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if that was all the newcomers.

What I find interesting is that the first leak had six characters. Then Rosalina was announced. Afterwards, we get the second leak with only five characters. Combine the eleven characters on the list with Rosalina and then you have 12 characters. I believe 12 newcomers total is a good sweetspot, as it's not too underwhelming (IE having only like five newcomers) or too overwhelming (IE adding nearly 20 newcomers, which is what Brawl did. That's insane).

I know twelve is a lot of characters, but I really don't think this is it. However, such discussion would be better suited for the speculations threads.

 

[Morbi]

How sure are you that an X/Y Pokémon was unpopular?

I myself was fully expecting an X/Y Pokémon, and many were on the same boat after it came out, and even more so when Prism Tower was a revealed stage. And you're ignoring marketing trends as a viable research outlet for anyone fabricating a leak. Someone trying to create a safe bet could look at fan opinion/the most wanted - or they could look at actual marketing trends. So even if the community who make prediction rosters don't expect an X/Y Pokémon (and anyone who didn't was only doing so because they wanted someone like Mewtwo instead), the leaker could also recognise that many characters were directly promoting different games that had a release or an anniversary (which is another line of logic fan made rosters have been using).

And I never said Wii Fit Trainer and Villager added credibility to the leak, and I disagree with the notion. Salromano listed "Animal Crossing Guy", which is just as vague as "Pokémon from X/Y" (could have meant Tom Nook, for example). Wii Fit Trainer could have referred to either the male or female Wii Fit Trainer, which is again, playing it safe (and he got lucky in the sense that both sexes were included as skins).

If you were fulling expecting an X/Y Pokemon, that would be 8 Pokemon characters. That was not logical at the time; also I asserted "most," you cannot account for those perspectives based on faith. Marketing trends might allude to a Pokemon from X and Y, but that would entail a cut, which we got, which is why the leak is more credible...

That is fine; objectively, they do increase the credibility of the leak. If you oppose the notion, you are in the minority.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

As a person who's been trying to speculate character, I know that I outright thought the Latest Gen had a really good chance of getting a character. Been like that for every game so far(but really started with Melee). Melee(Pichu), Brawl(Lucario), and now 4(Greninja). I honestly felt an X/Y character was a really safe guess due to the fact that it happened 2 times in a row(64 doesn't count, even if it doesn't really ignore the pattern. But let's not be pedant here on that, you know?). Who it was was the kicker. If it was a single Starter, Greninja was the most popular, no doubt.

I don't think that particular one does anything to discredit or make the leak more realistic. Because it was vague, it could've been an easy guess. But it also could've been the only information available at the time. It goes both ways, pretty much neutral.

 

[Morbi]

As a person who's been trying to speculate character, I know that I outright thought the Latest Gen had a really good chance of getting a character. Been like that for every game so far(but really started with Melee). Melee(Pichu), Brawl(Lucario), and now 4(Greninja). I honestly felt an X/Y character was a really safe guess due to the fact that it happened 2 times in a row(64 doesn't count, even if it doesn't really ignore the pattern. But let's not be pedant here on that, you know?). Who it was was the kicker. If it was a single Starter, Greninja was the most popular, no doubt.

I don't think that particular one does anything to discredit or make the leak more realistic. Because it was vague, it could've been an easy guess. But it also could've been the only information available at the time. It goes both ways, pretty much neutral.

To be fair, Pichu was a last minute clone and Lucario was by far one of the most popular Pokemon at the time. He was featured in a movie at that point, if I recall correctly. Most didn't believe that there was an ideal choice for Gen 6. I agree that it was plausible in the event of a cut, but prior to the first cut, no one believed that anyone would be cut. So it wasn't ever logical, it was just "a good chance."

I agree, it was probably too ambiguous to add much credibility. But objectively, it does add at the very least, a little bit of credibility.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

To be fair, Pichu was a last minute clone and Lucario was by far one of the most popular Pokemon at the time. He was featured in a movie at that point, if I recall correctly. Most didn't believe that there was an ideal choice for Gen 6. I agree that it was plausible in the event of a cut, but prior to the first cut, no one believed that anyone would be cut. So it wasn't ever logical, it was just "a good chance."

I agree, it was probably too ambiguous to add much credibility. But objectively, it does add at the very least, a little bit of credibility.

I don't think a cut would've mattered whatsoever. I still think a Gen VI guess was very safe and highly possible. Who it was was definitely hard to tell.

I honestly don't think the credibility can be good or bad at all in this particular case. There's good enough reasons why for each end, that it comes out 50/50(or whatever) in the end. That said, it's a good pick regardless.

 

[Morbi]

I don't think a cut would've mattered whatsoever. I still think a Gen VI guess was very safe and highly possible. Who it was was definitely hard to tell.

I honestly don't think the credibility can be good or bad at all in this particular case. There's good enough reasons why for each end, that it comes out 50/50(or whatever) in the end. That said, it's a good pick regardless.

Again, without a cut, we would have had 8 Pokemon. That is slightly irrational given most peoples expectations of the roster prior to the Direct, which honestly haven't changed much. It wasn't a "very safe and highly possible" option. That would entail that the reasoning was practical and plausible, which it wasn't. I mean, clearly it was the case, that didn't make it a safe option though. That is hindsight bias.

I agree with this sentiment, it was a good choice.

 

[ChikoLad]

A 6th Gen Pokémon was absolutely not a safe bet by any means. A 6th Gen Pokémon blindsided the majority of the fan base and practically no one expected Gekkouga to be in either (I hadn't even heard of him before his confirmation). Most people expected just Brawl + Mewtwo (especially after Lucario's confirmation). When we found out that Pokémon Trainer was axed and Gekkouga was in, that threw most people into a loop. The vagueness of the description of a new Pokémon from X & Y doesn't help validate the leak, but it doesn't discredit it either, as again, the information was very likely outdated

If you are going to keep using this argument, please provide me with prove that a 6th Gen Pokémon blindsided most people. I was blindsided by Greninja being announced when he was (I was expecting Palutena), but not blindsided by the notion of a 6th Gen Pokémon, as there was a lot of reason to believe one would show up as a fighter. Anyone who expected "Brawl + Mewtwo" was doing so based purely on personal wants. That's not logic, that's desire. Anyone looking at rosters with some logic would easily predict a 6th Gen Pokémon.

Whether or not fans expect something does not add any credibility to this leak. Fan expectations have no bearing on what is actually put in the game.

Here's why the "Pokémon from X/Y" throws a wrench in the works:

A real leak, is obviously going to be based on first hand information. It's going to be based off of what someone has seen of the game itself or it's design documents. Therefore, both fan speculation and marketing trends are not even slightly relevant to what is listed in the leak, assuming it is real.

So let's assume this leak is real.

The leak lists very specific characters. Palutena, Chorus Men, Shulk...but then it has "A Pokémon from X/Y".

Why the sudden vagueness, if the leak is real? If this guy had first hand information (i.e. his own experience), why didn't he just say "Greninja/Gekkouga", or anything that's more specific? There is literally no reason for him not to. After all, this is based off of first hand experience. If he played the game, he saw the character select screen, most likely. If he didn't play the game, the only other source of credible information is Sakurai's design documents. These would have a list of all planned characters. Greninja would be on this list.

You keep telling me that Greninja being a surprise to speculators helps the leak, but speculator opinions mean nothing here. Salromano's tipper is someone who claims to have first hand knowledge. He isn't conforming to fan speculation. He is saying what he saw.

Which is why the vagueness regarding a Pokémon newcomer makes this leak easy to disbelieve. I truly do feel this leak was in fact, just a good fabrication based on a mixture of fan favourites (Palutena, Shulk, Pac-Man, etc), marketing trends (hence he listed an X/Y newcomer), and just something odd for good measure (Chorus Men). Because if the tipper had first hand experience, then there is no excuse for vagueness as great as "Pokémon X/Y". And if the leak is indeed real, fan speculations have no bearing because as I keep saying, this guy has allegedly been on the inside of the dev team.

Furthermore, why has Rosalina never been mentioned? Surely he's seen her too, if he's been on the inside. Why would he neglect to leak her? Maybe he just didn't see her, but since there is plenty of reason to believe he didn't have any first hand experience at all, her absence from the leaks makes it even more doubtful.

If you oppose the notion, you are in the minority.

And I really don't care, because being in the majority does not mean being correct. The majority think this leak is real solely because the leak conforms to their personal expectations, and because it predicted an unexpected character. And while the latter point is justifiable reasoning for believing it, there is room to attribute it to being a lucky guess, as there are too many discrepancies with the claim that the tipper is on the inside.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

Again, without a cut, we would have had 8 Pokemon. That is slightly irrational given most peoples expectations of the roster prior to the Direct, which honestly haven't changed much. It wasn't a "very safe and highly possible" option. That would entail that the reasoning was practical and plausible, which it wasn't. I mean, clearly it was the case, that didn't make it a safe option though. That is hindsight bias.

I agree with this sentiment, it was a good choice.

I wouldn't say it was irrational at all. Brawl was going to have 7 Pokemon as is(Mewtwo added, possibly 8 if the Pra_Mai was a Pokemon). We had, per each game, 2, 4, and then 6 Pokemon. We could've easily had 6 character spaces with 8 Pokemon if PT wasn't cut. I don't think too much expected transformations to go. That said, a Gen 6 Pokemon was hardly unbelievable by any means.

No, I definitely think a Gen 6 Pokemon was very safe. Which one it was was actually nothing but a big guess.

 

[Morbi]

If you are going to keep using this argument, please provide me with prove that a 6th Gen Pokémon blindsided most people. I was blindsided by Greninja being announced when he was (I was expecting Palutena), but not blindsided by the notion of a 6th Gen Pokémon, as there was a lot of reason to believe one would show up as a fighter. Anyone who expected "Brawl + Mewtwo" was doing so based purely on personal wants. That's not logic, that's desire. Anyone looking at rosters with some logic would easily predict a 6th Gen Pokémon.

Whether or not fans expect something does not add any credibility to this leak. Fan expectations have no bearing on what is actually put in the game.

Here's why the "Pokémon from X/Y" throws a wrench in the works:

A real leak, is obviously going to be based on first hand information. It's going to be based off of what someone has seen of the game itself or it's design documents. Therefore, both fan speculation and marketing trends are not even slightly relevant to what is listed in the leak, assuming it is real.

So let's assume this leak is real.

The leak lists very specific characters. Palutena, Chorus Men, Shulk...but then it has "A Pokémon from X/Y".

Why the sudden vagueness, if the leak is real? If this guy had first hand information (i.e. his own experience), why didn't he just say "Greninja/Gekkouga", or anything that's more specific? There is literally no reason for him not to. After all, this is based off of first hand experience. If he played the game, he saw the character select screen, most likely. If he didn't play the game, the only other source of credible information is Sakurai's design documents. These would have a list of all planned characters. Greninja would be on this list.

You keep telling me that Greninja being a surprise to speculators helps the leak, but speculator opinions mean nothing here. Salromano's tipper is someone who claims to have first hand knowledge. He isn't conforming to fan speculation. He is saying what he saw.

Which is why the vagueness regarding a Pokémon newcomer makes this leak easy to disbelieve. I truly do feel this leak was in fact, just a good fabrication based on a mixture of fan favourites (Palutena, Shulk, Pac-Man, etc), marketing trends (hence he listed an X/Y newcomer), and just something odd for good measure (Chorus Men). Because if the tipper had first hand experience, then there is no excuse for vagueness as great as "Pokémon X/Y". And if the leak is indeed real, fan speculations have no bearing because as I keep saying, this guy has allegedly been on the inside of the dev team.

Furthermore, why has Rosalina never been mentioned? Surely he's seen her too, if he's been on the inside. Why would he neglect to leak her? Maybe he just didn't see her, but since there is plenty of reason to believe he didn't have any first hand experience at all, her absence from the leaks makes it even more doubtful.



And I really don't care, because being in the majority does not mean being correct. The majority think this leak is real solely because the leak conforms to their personal expectations, and because it predicted an unexpected character. And while the latter point is justifiable reasoning for believing it, there is room to attribute it to being a lucky guess, as there are too many discrepancies with the claim that the tipper is on the inside.

No; there is quite literally a factual basis for the perspective. Blatantly disregarding this notion is fallacious. It doesn't matter if you don't want to conform, it is completely and utterly logical, and objective, to state that they add validity to the leak. If you cannot comprehend that, we are finished. You can only state an opinion on the matter, there is nothing absolute that could actually support your interpretation of the leak.

I am alluding to the very last portion, where you respond to me. This isn't applicable to the entirety of your argument.

 

[Second Power]

If the leaker's information is outdated (as is one theory), keep in mind that some of the unannounced characters may have joined the new 'Forbidden 7'. Just something I found interesting.