GDC08: Sakurai on Super Smash Bros. Brawl development

At a surprisingly sparsely attended Friday morning session (relatively speaking), Masahiro Sakurai detailed the development processes behind upcoming super smash hit, Super Smash Bros. Brawl. First, he apologized for the game's North American delay, saying "Reggie said he would make a whole lot of extra copies to make up for that." Well, thanks ... we guess?

First, he explained the construction of the team, saying they were "structured like mercenary horde." Since Sakurai works as a freelance designer (his company is really just two employees, including himself) he assembled the 100+ person team for Smash for this project, and not everyone was full-time. Moving onto the most obvious topic: character selection. With Smash's extensive roster, Sakurai said most of the characters were "finalized in planning documents" before production even began. One of the few exceptions was Sonic, says Sakurai. "To tell you the truth, the decision to include Sonic was not made until 2007." Apparently, even some Nintendo characters could not be included because of "rights issues" -- we're not sure which characters he may be referring to.

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/02/22/gd...l-development/