Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

[Jeff]

The hype train is running full steam! We're just weeks away from the release of this game, so might as well get a thread going for it.

Now to kick this thread off, the big news coming out of today: https://comicbook.com/gaming/2018/10...l-roster-leak/

Yet another "leak." But this one has been carried by quite a few sites, and not just some random YouTube channels. It seems legit but...

I so very want to believe this, for Banjo-Kazooie alone, the rest is just icing. But even though it seems pretty convincing, there are some red flags:
-The image is blurry. Fake leaks are sometimes blurred to cover up evidence of Photoshop. And if someone actually had access to advertising materials, they could easily snap a high quality pic of it. It's 2018 after all, blurry phone pics should be a thing of the past.
-I'm not convinced Banjo-Kazooie would get representation in Smash Bros. Not because of Microsoft though, they seem to be open to the idea. I'm just not sure Nintendo would want to advertise a game series that's no longer available on Nintendo consoles but can still be found on a competing console. This would explain the old rule that 3rd party characters must have appeared on a Nintendo console. It was so that Nintendo wasn't advertising someone else's console.
-Last, and this is the big one. Sakurai mentioned not too long ago that we shouldn't expect too many more character reveals, and that the reveals will slow down. 8 new characters to reveal between now and the release date means at least one character per week. I wouldn't call that "slowing down." That's been the fatal flaw of most (if not all) fake leaks, too many characters, when in reality (as much as I hate to admit it), we're probably just getting 2-3 more max.

Some have pointed out other clues like the fact that there are also materials for the Grinch movie in the pic and that this person has been traced to a printing company in France that does work for Namco. But if it was that easy to track the "leaker" down, then they're either a really sloppy leaker, or this whole thing was just done as a joke and got out of hand. After all, the "LOL" in the pic certainly makes it seem like a joke, probably just intended for people who know this person and that he/she works at a print shop.

I still see there being a good chance of this being real, but there's also a good chance of it being fake. So what say you, TPM?

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

Meh, I never got into SSB, but considering how cool Tekken Tag Tournament 2 was on Wii U and Pokken for Wii U and Switch Namco's Tekken characters wouldn't be out of question. Or did I misunderstand something?

[Jeff]

Nah, Namco already put in Pac-Man as their rep. It looks like other than echos, there's only one rep per third party company. Maybe we could get Ms. Pac-Man.

Anyway, it looks like the leak I mentioned was debunked. The alleged leaker had left the company back in 2016 and his current company has no connection to Namco or Universal (which is making the Grinch movie), or Nintendo for that matter. Also, the company he used to work for released a statement saying that even though they've worked with Namco, they aren't doing any advertising for Smash Bros. So, it looks like whoever faked this just lazily searched LinkedIn for a person working for a company that did work for Namco, and framed the poor guy to make it look legit.

So with that out of the way... what characters do you want to see? For me:

Banjo-Kazooie: Mentioned this one already. Even though it's a long shot, it would be really cool. Maybe Nintendo could work out a deal with Microsoft to get B-K and B-T on the N64 classic in exchange for putting them in Smash.
Geno: Another character from the fake leak, but it would be cool to see some representation from Mario RPG.
Shadow: Echo of Sonic, heavier hitting, but slower, like Capt. Falcon speed. Seems likely he'll be in in some form since his assist trophy was replaced with Knuckles.
Dixie Kong: Even as an echo of Diddy. Not sure how likely this one is, since we already got King K. Rool as a DK rep.

[Link]

This game is a day one purchase for me.