You know, I hate to say this, I really do, but...
Did anyone catch what he said about that "Group" mode the other day? That you could only have as many players as the console would accept controllers? Then he purported that number to be four at the time being? Something like that, at least? That struck me as a strange thing to say, since we know you can play with both GC controllers and with Wiimotes, making at least eight controllers a possibility.
Then, today, we get a screen showing the rumble options, and what's on the screen? Six controllers. Three cube controllers and three Wiimote combos. This means that Brawl in particular is able to utilize all eight controllers at the same time, at least in the options screen.
Now, I know I'm drawing conclusions, yes, I admit that, but does anyone get the feeling that we might see more than four players allowed in a match? Is it possible that six or eight players would be included? In Melee, we saw one battle with six opponents that weren't wire frames, but we did see more than four, nonetheless. I get the feeling that, like the character screen, we've been seeing slightly modified screens to make it look like there's only four possible players at a time. I would not be surprised to see an announcement at some point in time talking about additional players, at least, in local, single-console play.
In fact, considering the game was supposed to be released by now, with a nicely announced Dec. 3rd release date, didn't it seem odd that they pushed the date back? Would it take that long, you know, three months, to add in a character or two? I dunno. Perhaps they wanted to pursue this possibility as well...