Galaxy Stage

There have been rumours bouncing around for a few weeks that Super Smash Bros. on Wii U and 3DS may arrive during the Spring of 2014, mainly based on retail listings. They've been loose rumours at best, but an interview given by Nintendo Germany's Bernd Fakesch has prompted speculation that Sakurai-san's hotly anticipated fighting game could indeed arrive in Spring / Q2 of 2014.

Here's what he reportedly said (translated on NeoGaf) to neckar-chronik.de.

For next spring two more big license games are also announced for our TV console with Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros.

A google translation of the page is a little more garbled, unsurprisingly, but produced largely the same result. We see three possibilities: Fakesch is right but has let slip early, he's just got it wrong, or it's a mis-quote / translation issue / bit of both. We'd lean towards the latter options, in truth, as Smash Bros. games notoriously take plenty of development time and effort; even with Namco Bandai weighing in with its expertise, Masahiro Sakurai isn't known for producing projects quickly and arguably ahead of time.

Nintendo executives often cite Smash Bros. when referencing big games on the horizon for the Wii U, so this may have been an instance of that being phrased poorly. Yet still, it's fun to consider the possibility that the titles (for it's due on 3DS too) could come relatively soon. At the very least it's a chance to consider the upcoming lineup of confirmed Wii U games, and debate when they'll arrive throughout 2014.

So take a big portion of salt with this one and have at it in the comments below.

[source neogaf.com, via neckar-chronik.de]