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Wii

Smash Bros. Delayed Until March 9th 91

After several delays already, Next Generation is reporting that the much-anticipated Wii title Super Smash Bros. Brawl has been pushed back yet again to early March. "The launch date for Super Smash Bros. Brawl has shifted a few weeks to March 9. The development is taking slightly longer than expected. As we're sure you have seen the game contains an unprecedented number of characters, options and experiences. Be sure to keep an eye on the Dojo site for the latest information."
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Smash Bros. Delayed Until March 9th

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  • That's ok (Score:5, Funny)

    by Alizarin Erythrosin ( 457981 ) on Tuesday January 15, 2008 @09:59AM (#22050076)
    The delay gives me that much more time to actually find a store around here that has a Wii in stock.
  • Currently there are 24 known characters for SSBB. Previous game had 25. [/nitpick]

    For some reason I seemed to be thinking it was coming out in March anyways... I still need to preorder a copy if/when that's possible.
    • Currently there are 24 known characters for SSBB.

      The game itself does have more characters than any of the other SB games.[/counter-nitpick]
    • by Turn-X Alphonse ( 789240 ) on Tuesday January 15, 2008 @10:06AM (#22050184) Journal
      You assume everthing has been revealed, I assume there will be another 8+ secret characters as with Melee.
      • Yeah, they have to have Pichu, Dr. Mario, and probably some new secret characters. That was part of the fun with melee, wondering what other character was hidden within that gem of a game.
      • by Gertlex ( 722812 )
        Of course I don't assume that everything's revealed. I religiously follow my RSS feed for Brawl. :)
    • You're kind of forgetting that the game will most likely have all the characters of previous games (even though only a few are listed under "veteran fighters.") Jigglypuff isn't even in there! So that's... 25 plus the 12 new ones, equals 37 (that we know of).
      • by edwdig ( 47888 )
        You're kind of forgetting that the game will most likely have all the characters of previous games

        The comments for Lucas on the offical site have said that he's in the game instead of Ness, so that's one old character confirmed gone.

        I've also gotten the impression that Ike is replacing Roy & Marth, although I don't think they've said anything concrete on that.

        Once they start removing characters, I wouldn't be surprised to see others removed. I'd put clones, Mewtwo, and Game & Watch as the most likel
    • by Kuukai ( 865890 )

      Not an "unprecedented" number of chars
      For a second I read that as "unprecedented number of chairs" and was like, "woah, Ballmer's in there now?!"
    • by morari ( 1080535 )
      Mortal Kombat Armageddon had somewhere around sixty or seventy characters. All of those ninja aren't just pallet swaps nowadays either!
      • Yes but MKA is what you call "overkill". So far (IMO) Marvel vs Capcom 2 was the only one that made that many characters work. I think 30 is plenty.

        I got an idea for a new character... who wouldn't love to use Snake beat up Jack Thompson on Brawl???
        • by morari ( 1080535 )
          I don't think MKA was necessarily overkill. If you're a fan of the series, it was quite gratifying. I don't like many of the new characters from Deception personally, but even they weren't a bad addition in the grand scheme of having everyone. I just wish we could have seen a return of all of the stages as well, instead of some half-baked "Kart Kombat" mode. Oh, and Tremor from the Special Forces spin-off would have been cool. :P
  • Take you time to make a good time I said, but now I'm kind of regretting those words. Wasn't this suppose to be a launch title? I guess I can take solace in the fact that it's announced to be released near my birthday (hint, hint!)
    • Wasn't this suppose to be a launch title?

      If I remember correctly, then no...at least, not as the Wii neared release (a year or so before, yes). It was supposed to be a lot closer, though. I suppose all of the build-up may actually be good for sales in the market of those not already addicted.

      That being said, I have quite a few friends who are going to be more than a little pissed off at the news.

  • SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!?! /sorry, had to do it.

    This has me fairly upset, as I've been chomping at the bit for this game.
  • all that means is that the game will be smoother than melee. and maybe there will be twice as many characters
  • by Alzheimers ( 467217 ) on Tuesday January 15, 2008 @10:09AM (#22050222)
    Considering this will be the first BIG online game for the Wii, I'm hoping they're taking their time to make sure it's done right. I don't know if the Wii can download patches as easily as the PS3/x360, so if the Big N takes a little extra time to reduce lag and latency's effect on gameplay *now* I'll be happy for the delay.

    Now if they could just get rid of these damn buddy codes. All it does is move the matchmaking from an in-game browser to the web forums. I know it's all about "protecting the kiddies" but that's why these consoles have parental control options. Turn off the parental block, and let adults play with adults without the barriers.
    • Hmm... I guess you missed "With Anyone" [smashbros.com] mode. It's free of buddy codes and rankings, for random play.
      • Names won't be shown and messages won't be sent. Neither your identity nor your opponents' will be known, so you can play without any worries.

        Might as well be playing with a half-decent AI then, donchathink?
        • It would have to be an incredible AI in order to match the unpredictability and flexibility of a human player.

          The best Smash, like before, will almost undoubtedly be when you have 3 flesh-and-blood opponents in your living room. It's nice that they're trying, and "With Anyone" mode may be just the tip of the online iceberg.
          • I'm not saying it's not a good start, but enforcing the communication barrier should be the job of the parent, not the developer.

            Put in a Mute mode if the console is set to T. Otherwise, treat every random player like a friend. Then, for those adults who don't want the verbal abuse that sometimes comes up from these kinds of systems, then can set that console ID to ignore and never have to play that person again. And with matches that do work, that's one more friend to play again.

            It's this kind of nannyi
        • Might as well be playing with a half-decent AI then, donchathink?

          You will be. If someone drops out of the match, the game won't tell you, and just replace the character with an AI.

          Nintendo is touting this as a feature, but if you ask me, "our online multiplayer has so little communication, we can replace someone with an AI and you won't even know" kinda defeats the point of online multiplayer.
          • Is that true? :O That sounds quite stupid. Link please?
            • It's on the Dojo website. Can't find the link now, but it is certainly there.

              That said, it is a very welcome feature. Anyone who as played online games before and had competitors disconnect because the battle wasn't in the favor will know why.

              That said, the Internet use Wii has still annoys me, even when they do allow random battles (no rankings, no usernames, etc.). It's a nice system and the game will be good, but I don't think I will use the online features at all. Maybe they'll get it right with their n
            • About halfway down the page [smashbros.com]

              By the way, have you ever had an experience in which your opponent was disconnected, and the match never came to fruition? Like when you started with four players, but ended up with only one?

              I don't like that feeling, so I've tried to counter it.

              If you get cut off, your character will get taken over by the CPU without your opponents even knowing--it pinch hits for you!

              And sure, while it might be a neat feature of an online system, I don't like the fact that it doesn't t

    • by LWATCDR ( 28044 )
      I don't know if the friends codes are all that bad. I think in a way it adds to the "social" aspect of the Wii. My Wii is set to work with a few of my friends Wiis and not anyone else.
      In other words we play games with people that we have real relationships with and not strangers online.
      As you said you can use any number of websites to find people to play with on-line so it doesn't stop you from finding people to play online with.
      Maybe it is just different and not all that bad.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by zerOnIne ( 128186 )
        My problem with the in-game friend codes is that they make absolutely no use of the Wii's built-in friend code system whatsoever. So it doesn't matter if we've already swapped Wii codes and I can send you Wiimail; in order to play Brawl together (or Guitar Hero 3, or ... you name it) online, we need to give each other *additional* friend codes.

        I wouldn't even care if the lists were kept separately for each game. That'd allow me to, say, add some guy from a forum to my Brawl list but not my GH3 list. BUT for
        • by LWATCDR ( 28044 )
          I can see your point. I haven't messed with the online stuff yet with the Wii. My wife has but yea if you have a Wii friend you should have the opportunity to just add them from the address book. I still need to get Opera for my Wii as well.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Mr2001 ( 90979 )

        I don't know if the friends codes are all that bad. I think in a way it adds to the "social" aspect of the Wii. [...] In other words we play games with people that we have real relationships with and not strangers online.

        You can do that with other consoles too... but you can also form new relationships with people you meet online.

        I mean, that's a pretty common way to make friends: meeting people who share your interests. Why is it more "social" to meet people somewhere else, and then later invite them to play online (hoping they own a Wii and the games you like), than to just meet people online who you know have a Wii and enjoy the same games as you?

  • I thought they had said that it had gone gold about a month ago...?
    • I thought they had said that it had gone gold about a month ago...?
      Well, this game is supposed to support online play, yes? Maybe one of the designers owns a 360 and noticed the slight problem they had with Live. It is possible that they want to make sure they can handle the launch on the server-side.
    • I thought they had said that it had gone gold about a month ago...?
      Read the archived comic of penny-arcade about what going gold REALLY means
  • by moosesocks ( 264553 ) on Tuesday January 15, 2008 @10:19AM (#22050328) Homepage
    Let me guess..... Duke Nukem is being added as one of the character choices?
  • Quite frankly, I would MUCH prefer that they get it right by delaying a few more months than rush it out early and possibly screw it it up. Keep in mind, the major short-coming of the Wii is that it does not have a hard drive to allow for patching or upgrading. With the Wii, if a disc-based game is faulty, a new disc needs to be sent out unless Nintendo starts to take advantage of SD cards. (See Activision's Guitar Hero III-in-monaural debacle.)

    The gaming community is rife with examples of games that
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by techpawn ( 969834 )

      the major short-coming of the Wii is that it does not have a hard drive

      What you talkin' bout Willis? It DOES HAVE MEMORY [wordpress.com] Only 512 and most of that is used for downloads from the Wii Shop. But, I agree. If you rush a product with the idea of "we'll just patch it later" that's just bad programming. I mean WHO [microsoft.com] who do THAT?

      • Internal flash memory != hard drive.

        If they were to use the (small) amount of memory that comes with the Wii for Wii game patches, it would consume it quite quickly. I'm glad to see that they are putting the brakes on this for now. Ship a finely polished product instead of a half-assed one. Works for Blizzard...
      • 512 MB is nowhere near sufficient for patches, hence why I mentioned possibly using Smart Cards for external storage but Nintendo doesn't seem to want to use it for that -- yet. (The Guitar Hero III fix/update is supposed to have downloadable content for the Wii, so I would guess that it will be requiring an SD card for that.) Besides, utilizing any kind of memory for patches on the Wii will only encourage such sloppy "ship it now, patch it later" programming whereas right now the developers can't get awa
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Khuffie ( 818093 )
        Apple [apple.com] do that too.
        • Last I checked Jobs didn't unveil a new console yesterday;)

          Patching has always been common to personal computing, Microsoft's blunde^H^H^H^H^H revolutionary innovative technology brought it to gaming!
  • by llevity ( 776014 ) on Tuesday January 15, 2008 @10:47AM (#22050702)
    Everyone always says "Oh, a delay. That's cool. It means they're making sure they get it right. I'd much rather have it be good and late than on time and crappy."

    While I agree, can't anyone get it done right, AND on time? Or is "good" and "on time" now mutually exclusive?
    • by cowscows ( 103644 ) on Tuesday January 15, 2008 @11:03AM (#22050912) Journal
      When I was younger, I knew the world wasn't perfect, but I thought that adults were generally competent and honest enough that much of civilization and technology was really refined and well functioning. I just sort of assumed that medicine and construction and industry was all about well established procedures, precision, and organization.

      These days, I make a living designing buildings, and I can tell you that I was entirely wrong about all of that. There are tons of full grown, highly educated, very experienced professionals that are just as confused, scatterbrained, and flaky as those dumbass lab partners you'd end up with in high school. And getting them to do their fair share of the work is sometimes harder than the actual project you're trying to accomplish. When something is being designed, it's really really hard to solve all the problems before you actually start building it. Lots of things will go wrong, lots of simple things will get overlooked, lots of stuff that you never expected will happen. Half the time, whoever discovers the problem will either blame someone else, or at least try to shift responsibility for figuring it out away from themselves. The other half of the time the problem will be solved on the spot by whoever happens to notice it. Then there's maybe a 50/50 chance that they'll mention that issue to anyone else involved.

      I guess the point is, there are very few jobs/projects where you just sit down and crank out work according to a schedule. Design of almost any sort is less about putting down the answers onto paper/computer/whatever, and more about trying stuff out, seeing what problems arise, and then trying to fix them. Deadlines have a role in the process and are important, but unless someone is producing an exact replica of a game/building/object that they've already done, you shouldn't take a date as anything other than a very rough approximation.
      • I'd much prefer a team full of people who are competent, but not fantastic at their job over a group of people who were overconfident and arrogant any day.

        "Plan for the worst, expect the best" tends to be the strategy that produces the best results in the long-run, and prevents small problems from turning into huge problems. Even though Team 2's best estimate is 20% longer than Team 1's, I'd put my money on Team 2.

        Sadly, the business world these days seems reluctant to identify and root out incompetent a
    • While I agree, can't anyone get it done right, AND on time? Or is "good" and "on time" now mutually exclusive?
      • Full-featured
      • On schedule
      • On Budget.

      Choose up to two.

    • I don't mind them taking time to get it right, but a second delay is quite unprofessional. I think that they should release a demo in all regions to make up for the delay. They already plan to release a demo in Japan, and I know that they have multiple demo builds from events like Whooby, E for All, and a couple others that they could simply upload onto the Wii Shop, or distribute disks of in Nintendo Power. It would be easy for them to do, and it would placate the masses (including myself). I have sent the
  • "Super Smash Bros. Forever: Featuring Duke Nukem!"
  • Were sorry, but this game has been delayed another 4 weeks to April 6
  • I remember when this game was set to be released alongside the Wii (or a few months after, I don't remember). But it kept getting pushed back further and further, until its true release date became locked in a Shrödinger box of quantum indeterminacy. Then the Duke Nukem Forever trailer came out and its waveform began to stabilize.

    Then they moved it to Dec 3rd 2007, my birthday, and it soon failed to live up to even that. Nobody ever remembers my birthday. Thanks Nintendo.

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