Room for some more?

The game may still be a fair bit away, with the only publicly shown development being a whiteboard sketch, but the next entry in the Super Smash Bros. series is, it's safe to assume, high on the hype lists of a lot of Nintendo gamers. It's the ultimate fan-service franchise, so it's only natural to want to know as much as possible about the Wii U and 3DS title, even at this early stage.

It's perhaps the collaboration between Project Sora and Namco Bandai that's most intriguing, as the title will have the direction of Masahiro Sakurai and his team alongside a major third-party. For those unsure of how big a priority this title is for Namco Bandai, Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada clarified the planned role of the wider company and his specific team in an interview with NowGamer.

Obviously it’s a big priority for the company, so company-wide there are a lot of people involved with that particular project. Not just from Tekken but a lot of our franchises.

Although our main core staff is busy with Tekken Tag tournament 2 and trying to finish that up, I do think we’ll support the initiative in some kind of capacity.

The subject of the character roster was also raised, an area where Sakurai recently stated that a priority was a change of direction for the series, rather than simply inflating the number of fighters. The inclusion of Namco Bandai characters is clearly a possibility, however, though Harada struck a cautious tone.

That question was one of the most frequently asked questions we got when we announced the project. Especially from abroad.

The fans, rather than asking about Tales or Gundam, or some of our other franchises, the fans abroad saw Tekken as one of the key words and took off on that.

We’re not really sure at this moment but when thinking of the playerbase who is playing Smash Bros, maybe Tekken characters is something they wouldn’t want, so I’ve been pulling back on that a bit. But I don’t know.

It's interesting to hear about the seemingly large-scale commitment from Namco Bandai; the potential inclusion of some of its characters is, we're sure, something to get the opinions flowing.

[source nowgamer.com]