I know you guys are obligated to report this because it's Nintendo-related, but is this really news?  Sakurai's been saying this since E3.

when they finish off the super smash bros series the title should be, super smash bros: the final fight, and they should go all out with many characters from other publishers and all of Nintendo characters (toad and more sonic characters) they should add small villains to fight s like goombas (if Kirby return to dreamland can do it why cant super smash bros?)

I would like to see more third-party characters, along with the return of Snake and (definitely) Sonic. They really should be iconic within Nintendo's history though. Big games that appears on the NES, for example. It'd be nice to see Simon Belmont, one of the Battletoads (with custom/color choices for Zit, Rash, and Pimple), or Pac-Man... for example. I'd think that Megaman would be a great choice as well, but Capcom won't even put him in their own crossover fighting games. :P

More than anything though, I want real alternate costumes... like Wario had. Sonic should also be Shadow, Silver, and Metal Sonic. Snake should be Solid, Liquid, and Naked. Mario should have Dr. Mario, Link should have Toon Link, etc. If nothing else, it'd be nice to see 8 or 16 bit costumes for a lot of the roster.

They started development?

Battletoads was created by the Stamper Brothers so I think Rare owns the IP which pretty much means Microsoft owns the IP. No Battletoads for Super Smash Bros.

It's all just wishful thinking anyway. :P

How about Alexandra or Karim from Eternal Darkness, then? I imagine Nintendo still has quite a hold on that as an IP, even if Silicon Knights did part ways.

I wonder if little part of Sakurai died when they surprised him with the Smash Brothers announcment at E3...

The 3DS needs games NOW so this is the approach they have to take. The Wii U can be delayed if they can't get a game lineup for it but the 3DS is out and needs to be sold to the masses now.

He knew about it before E3 actually. He just didn't want to announce it since absolutely nothing had begun.

They should just start the game without him, it would be better off that way anyhow.

I don't think it's Sakurai they're concerned about. A game isn't made by one guy, neither SSB WiiU nor Kid Icarus. The rest of the team has to work on KI as well.

Considering it was the first 3DS game ever announced and demo-ed, I still can't believe they aren't done.  I thought the delay was financial or marketing related, and they were just sitting on a gold copy, waiting for the right time.  Guess that wasn't it.

Well, games can have a LOT of stuff that needs to be added even after it's in a demo-able state. Especially if the demo reactions were negative.

You veered off from alternate costumes to alternate characters. Shadow is not at all related to Sonic (you know what I mean), so why would he be an alternate costume? It would be like saying Meowth should be a alternate costume for Pikachu. Same with the Snakes. The Mario and Link ones are fine since those are the same characters.

Anyways, I have to agree with brood. I was surprised to see this posted as news on various sites since Nintendo said back at E3 that development on the two Smash Bros. games would not begin until Kid Icarus was done.

Since Nintendo is open to the idea of DLC (I know they have expressed little interest in it themselves, just that they are open to third parties doing it), I hope they consider using it for Smash Bros. to add more characters and stages later.

I think that they should have a better special brawl such as more customazations like a bomb head
I also think that the new s.s.b should have a more in depth stage creator and character creator