The people behind Smash Bros. say not to expect a lot of third-party characters in the next incarnation of their fighting game. Mega Man is an exception.
While chatting with Smash designer Masahiro Sakurai this morning, I pointed out that fans are very psyched about the Blue Bomber making an appearance in his next game. Third-party characters—or, characters from publishers not named Nintendo—are uncommon in Super Smash Bros., and after appearances by Solid Snake and Sonic in the last game, Brawl, a lot of people were hoping to see Capcom bring Mega Man to Nintendo's mascot fighting series.
"So," I continued, "what's the third-party character you'd most like to see?"
Sakurai laughed.
"I'm really sorry," he said through a translator. "If I were to answer that question, I'd get in a lot of trouble in a lot of different ways, so I can't answer. But I think I can say generally that there won't be a trend of adding a lot of third-party characters. You can sort of think of Mega Man as being the special case."
http://kotaku.com/do...e-nex-513203533
Seems reasonable. Brawl had 2, so I see 5 or 6 3rd party characters. I don't see Snake returning, but Sonic will along with perhaps Knuckles.