Well there was Disaster: Day of Crisis...

OH WAIT

Agreed. The Nintendo icon stable needs some new faces.

*grunt* give mah new Zelda gaemz! *grunt*

It would be nice to see some new characters but i dunno, i seriously do not get tired of Link or Mario, as long as the games are good, me like them.

Nintendo's greatest strength of late has been the exploitation of nostalgia. I'm not sure that they'd knowingly abandon this; it seems to be an effective model for them.

You can only cannibalize yourself for so long before you run out of limbs to gnaw on....

Phoenix Wright?

@MissPeacock:

hes from Capcom

Much of the WarioWare cast has potential. Are spin-offs in order?

That's why I'm more of a Sony person. Sure they keep the fan favourites but there's always some new faces.

I wouldn't be surprised if he were censored later on for those comments. A little harsh coming from a dev of a Nintendo game.

Any new characters created will not have the same impact as any of the classics. The reason we all cheer for Mario, Luigi, Link, and Yoshi is because we all have that shared experiece. If you played games in the mid-80s, you more than likely had an NES. If you had an NES, you more than likely played Marios Bros. and Zelda. So, it's kinda like we ALL played those games, and it feels like a "collective love" for these characters.

With the super diverse console marketplace, a ton of people are gonna miss out on any new characters, making it much harder to create the same loving nostalgia.

I agree, we need some fresh blood.

Of course, we could just get more third party charcters into the next Smash Bros (Megaman, Bomberman, Simon Belmont, and god forbid Master Chief (I'd buy a port of Halo 1 and 2 fo rthe Wii, hint hint at Microsoft), just off the top of my head). Maybe something along the Real Time Strategy genre could be jury rigged up, I haven't seen one of those made by Nintendo yet.

Come out with something new to replace Zelda, it clearly needs a long break.

I have to say I really don't mind the ever-increasing number of various Mario games. While I think maybe a little shift in resources from spin-offs to the core games would be nice (maybe we can get a second original platformer for the DS? NSMB was fantastic), I'm a die-hard Mario Kart fan and the sports games are usually fairly well-made. They're usually worth at least a rent.

@baxterpunch: Maybe you feel that way. But when I see a new Mario game now, I think oh great jump around some more and save the same princess who just can't seem to stop being kidnapped. Something new, original would be great. Look at Capcom and Phoenix Wright, great new character, great new game play. Never seen before either.

3rd parties should be hurting themselves trying to put characters in this game.

I still say that Nintendo can fall back on third-party characters for their next Smash Bros. game. *coughMega Mancough*

@Hopanoe: Don't forget Project H.A.M.M.E.R.

Here's a thread topic: what's the greatest new character-game from the last five years?

As long as the new character isn't a "baby-something". They've played that to death. I'd like the characters to be something geared at people above the age of 4.

@urban_ryoga: Well they can't really censor him anymore as he actually is a freelancer now as he said he was "tired of working on the same few franchises" in the Iwata Asks interview. This is probably an extension of that notion. He seems to not mind working for Nintendo, but he seems to want to either work on a completely new IP or if he makes another Smash Brothers he said he'd only do it if he could make significant changes to how the game functions. I think the main Zelda director (Eiji Aonuma) has been reflecting this sentiment as well as he said that Twilight Princess was the last Zelda of its kind, likely meaning that he really wanted to break away from the very well designed but often repeated formulas of the game.

"hmm we could make some new characters...or..hmm..okay, we'll use other iconic characters from other companies!"
"great idea!"

Smash Bro's 4 will include megaman, crash bandicoot, master chief, bomberman, some FF guys, and others. it'll be AWWSUM

dont care much about Nintendo IPs, but a new one would be cool to see (except for Geist..)

SSBB producer pines for new Nintendo characters. Good luck buddy. Good. Luck.

Nintendo needs a "Mario Killer" if you don't mind me using that terminology.

Pikmin was amazing, and showed that the creative minds at Nintendo are capable of more than, say, cranking out a pretty, polished peice of steaming shit like Twilight Princess every year. But then again, everyone eats it right up regardless, so why would they?

Throw Miyamoto into another garden and he'll think of something again. Do it while he can still move on his own!

It'd be more comforting to see more 3rd party characters, although I doubt we'll see MegaMan. Capcom is stingy with licenses.

@超外人: I would LOVE to have MegaMan in SSMB. That would be so awesome.

@Pezdispenser: I was thinking the same thing. Konami has already shown willingness (or given in to their cash cow Kojima anyway), and Capcom has done crossover games before. If they really wanted to, imagine how many fighters they could make out of the Mega Man series alone. Capcom is a veritable treasure trove. And Simon Belmont and Alucard would fit right alongside Marth and Roy.

And yes Nintendo, please make new IPs already. And I mean real games, not Wii Fit and Brain Training type games.

@Hopanoe: why is that getting oh wait'd?

what?
they could add the skull kid from everyones (second) favorite
N64, 5 billion characters from star fox, f-zero characters, advanced wars characters, EBA characters, and almost nothing else.
ok, thats not that many, but still, thats one more sequel full.
more non nintendo IP's would be awesome, especially those from games like metal slug, resident evil, halo, half life, and many others.
i dont think newer IP's is a great idea, anything older than the dream cast would work.

What happens when they try to make new characters? We get Walugi. And to lesser extent the Koopa Kids. Hated those brats in Super Mario World, But loved Kid Koopa in Double Dash.

@The Cat With Two Heads:
how would you go about polishing that?

@Derigor:

You, sir, are an anomaly. The only, ONLY, person who actually liked Bowser Jr while simultaneously hating his original kids. Most people have it the other way around.

Ahem- there are plenty of characters in games now that are memorable.

Advance Wars
Banjo-Kazooie, Conker, and Joanna Dark(now owned by Microsoft)
Baten Kaitos
Dr. Lobe
Chibi-Robo

Advance Wars is like Fire Emblem, Rare franchises were after Pokemon during the N64 era (which is why they're absent), Baten Kaitos is sort of kind of owned by Nintendo but not so...and Dr. Lobe & Chibi Robo just aren't as impacting. So really, what we need is a character who has a good personality and would work.

I love Nintendo in principle. It just seems that now they innovate spectacularly once in a while, and spend the rest of their time rehashing old games (at least EA mixes things up a little...), and flogging old characters until they go from loved to hated to even worse. I was the biggest Mario nut as a kid, but now I see him almost as a seal of lack of quality (Yeah! Mario Party 27!) The rest... I liked but wasn't the biggest fan of, so extrapolate from there. :/

I think Pokemon was their last infusion of really likeable characters and that was in the 1990s.

But that said, I'm not ready to give up on them just yet. I'm just waiting for them to be original again. They may not have Gunpei Yokoi, but they still have Shigeru Miyamoto!

A Mii in Smash would have just pissed me off more than anything. I'm glad it wasn't added.

Animal Crossing really needed a rep, though.

Nintendo create new characters? Good luck on that. Nintendo will recycle FOREVER. It is the Nintendo way.

@L:

I'd rather play a true Mario game than a knock off that replaces the lead with a talking cat, a zany bandicoot, or a google-headed freak with a pet weasel.

But maybe that's just me.

(Also, PW dates back to 2001.)

They should have made your Mii a playable character. Other good characters:

-Original Koopa Kids
-Paper Mario/Paper Bowser (if we're gonna have characters like Toon Link)
-Boo
-Koopa (normal green shell or dry bones)
-Advance Wars characters
-Ridley

What are you talking about? Nintendo has LIMITLESS potential for new characters!
Wakirby, Walink, Wapeach, Wasamus, Wafox, Wakachu..

All they need is a new tennis game to introduce them in.

I'd LOVE to see Mega Man, Chrono, Geno, K.Rool, The Ghosts and Goblins/Ghouls and Ghosts Knight, Bomberman, Rayman... there's much they could do without looking too hard.

Skull Kid is a cool idea as well.

Just add Tom Nook in there. He should break peoples thumbs like a real loan shark.

I'd love to see the dog from Duck Hunt in the next smash bros as well.

New IPs from nintendo really wouldnt work. Everything's been done before and It would be like they were ripping off their own franchises. That being said SEGA should sell some of their IPs to Nintendo so maybe we can get some decent Sonic games.

I don't really see Animal Crossing making a good fighter showing... same for a Mii. And nobody in Advance Wars actually fights, unlike Fire Emblem. I mean, even Olimar can smack people up in his games.
Suggestions for Master Chief will remain and always be stupid.

I don't know, I think he's right in a way, but people seem to be blowing what he said out of context. Nintendo *is* developing new franchises, he even named several. It's just that yeah, most don't have the memorable characters like Mario, etc.

I agree though, Pikmin was an amazingly fresh direction and I really want to see more of that type of thing. The aforementioned Disaster: Day of Crisis I think is a good step. But we'll see.

Anyways, getting slightly off-topic but along the lines of "new characters", anyone else find it odd that Nintendo basically took credit for Magical Starsign in the SSBB trophies/stickers? I suppose they did publish it, but they didn't really develop it in-house (in fact, it was about one step removed from being a Square-Enix title.. most of the developers are ex-Secret of Mana guys). I mean, are they going to take credit for Sword of Mana too? :P

did pikmin even do all that well really?

@Pezdispenser:

I probably learned to hate them since I was always murdering them in lava with Mario, but in Double dash I was using him to haul ass all over the place...

OK OK I admit I just hate their stupid hair.