The Super Smash Bros. 4 Discussion Thread

[CosmykTheDolfyn]

Not that SSB4 is that, but I feel Nintendo still views it more that way.

I feel that's changed actually. Sakurai had a very shitty attitude towards Brawl which resulted in the game being pretty bad (Project M fixed that but only by so much). Once SSB4 was announced again, he was pretty shitty but over time he(and Nintendo) have shifted their attitude in favour of competitive gaming. As of last year we've seen 1) Nintendo fully embrace Melee being at EVO. Remember, they were going to stop Melee from being in EVO 2013s lineup. We've seen Sakurai 2) announce Final Destination settings for all stages and only as of last week, have an 3) invitational with some of the best players to demonstrate SSB4.
Melee 12 years on is still being streamed on Twitch and getting over 100 000 viewers. It's a big deal for competitive gaming.

Here's the thing:
Points 1 and 3 really helped build hype for SSB4, and we all know that Nintendo is king of advertising. That's nearly free advertising in each case, especially since today's game market deals with youtube, twitch and every post online driving sales higher.
Second thing: Note past sales. 32% of gamecube owners bought Super Smash Bros Melee. 12% of Wii owners bought Brawl. (These are quick calculations based on sales of consoles and games). Brawl sold better overall, but just because the Wii sold so many units. Better physics, less cartoony stuff=awesome sales in Smash Bros. Nintendo is looking at that also. Brawl was panned. They're changing it, not because of love of competitive gaming, but friending up a little will help sales.
That may make me love SSB4 more than Brawl in the end, but I don't buy it one bit that Nintendo is shifting their policy ever so slightly for any other reason than cash. The entire thing so far just screams the most brilliant marketing maneuver Nintendo has ever pulled off, not catering to the fighting market. It just so happens a change in some policy will help there.