The fact that they are already basically done is reason enough for their inclusion. Removing them doesn't add anything to the game.

There is not some limited number of characters they can have in the game you know. It's not like they can just trade five characters for another five at the drop of a hat. Besides, the five you described are clones and took considerably less effort to create since they already had a template to build them from and all…

If enough people refer to them that way, it'll become their defacto names :P

Yeah, I'm personally hoping that the Wii U version releases with a number of the characters from Melee and Brawl that got missed (revamped Squirtle, revamped Ivysaur, Lucas, Mewtwo, Ice Climbers, Wolf, Snake, possibly Roy?) which maybe gets added to the 3DS version either by patching or as a bonus to people who buy…

That's 15. More if you consider all the possible variations on the Mii. Plus, Robin can be a man or a woman, Bowser Jr.'s alternate costumes are the seven Koopalings (Roy, Iggy, Lemmy, Larry, Morton, Wendy, Ludvig), and Duck Hunt Dog is the goddamn dog from Duck Hunt.

To be fair, Gold and Silver had way more content, Nearly twice as much,

It's not their money that they are gambling with when they are working with a publisher like that.

That's not really harassment specific to women. Just look at Halo, the lack of a female character does little to curb the rampant 'teabagging'.

No no, it's meta in that it's thinking beyond the rules of the game and establishing a new set... classical outside the box thinking. A minigame is typically a smaller game within a game that has well defined rules rather than ones that are created by (and enforced by) the player. I suppose technically it's kind of…

Thank you Mr. Owl.

most players who actually play the game long enough to enjoy the sum of its content

Dr. Mario's specials? Plural? Aside from mega-vitamins, I don't think they were that different. At least not in Melee.

Hey, I agree with you entirely that Notch got a great deal. No argument there. To be fair though, he already had the kind of money one needs to be able to do pretty much whatever you want.

I think by millions he means the amount of money that Minecraft was bringing in to Mojang across all platforms + merchandising, not including the sale of the company.

That's what I understood the statement to literally mean, but double negation across multiple sentences with added context isn't just confusing to readers, it's also confusing to writers... which is what left me wondering if his words matched his intent.

"Why'd Microsoft pay so much for Minecraft? It's a fad past its prime."
TELEPORT TO: 1999
"Pokemon's a fad that's past its prime"

That's a weirdly worded statement that leaves me wondering if your intent matches what you said. Would you or wouldn't you sell an IP that made you millions over several years for 2.5 billion dollars?

'me and my mate still use items minus final smashes' isn't exactly the most obvious justification for keeping final smashes in the game :P

Release testing technically. I don't really see that as a factor though.

It really makes you wonder why they didn't go for a simultaneous worldwide release... or at least US+JP at the same time. I mean, what did they really gain from releasing three weeks earlier in Japan?