Super Smash Bros. unlikely to have more third-party characters

Super Smash Bros. 3DS and Wii U probably won't have many third-party characters, director Masahiro Sakurai has confirmed, despite development assistance from Namco Bandai.

"Adding third-party characters should be considered a very special case," Sakurai told IGN.

"In the last game, when we added Sonic and Snake, there were lots of different hoops to jump through as far as getting approvals and making sure all the parties involved were happy with the way things went. You can consider it a very special circumstance for that to happen."

Even Pokémon characters can be tricky to bring in because of the licensing arrangements, Sakurai added.

"It’s much tougher than people can imagine. I know lots of people have requests and their own ideas about third-party characters that would work, but I want people to understand that adding a third-party character like Mega Man is a very special situation," he said.

So don't expect the cats of Tekken to make an appearance despite their development team collaborating with Nintendo on the game.

"Just because the game is being cooperatively developed with Namco Bandai involved, that doesn’t at all mean that they’d be given any special consideration for having characters in the game," Sakurai said.

"Smash Bros. can still be considered as an all-star collection of Nintendo characters. Just like with Mega Man or any other third-party character, it would have to be a very special situation."