Sakurai: "We've got no plans whatsoever" for Smash Bros, "several year" wait possible

Chomping at the bit with excitement for a new Smash Bros? You may want to hold your horses. Primarily because they have hooves and can't play videogames, you silly goose. But also because it looks like we've got quite a wait ahead of us.

"Right now, we're devoting all our manpower to working on Kid Icarus," Project Sora head Masahiro Sakurai said in a Famitsu column translated by 1UP. "We've got no plans whatsoever - we've got two new games out in the open when there's no extra time to work with them at all. It makes me cringe, and I'm not sure it's the smartest thing to make gamers wait for several years, but the early announcement was made chiefly in order to attract new team members."

Originally, Sakurai explained, Smash Bros next brawl was set to take place only on 3DS. So, why not go the simpler route and take things one platform at a time? Because that'd lead the franchise right off a cliff, creatively speaking. And Sakurai approaches life much like he approaches games: with tons of edge-hogging.

"If we went solely for the Wii U," he explained, "the HD graphics would really bump up the visual effects, but then we'd be stuck in another arms race. If we made this game another extension over previous one, we'd have to cut out the new things we could possibly do on the 3DS hardware and compete with ourselves again over the size of the character roster and the amount of gameplay we can put it."

"It wouldn't be a fruitful competition, but doing something completely new would be difficult for many reasons, not least of which that the gamers may not be satisfied with it. That's why we decided to think about ways to link the personal connection one has with his portable system to the gather-around-and-play aspect of console systems."

Hopefully, then, it'll be worth the unexpectedly long wait. And hey, with Valve "interested" in Wii U and Half-Life 2: Episode 3 also slated for release during Stardate Chronoyear 20XX, maybe we could get Gordon Freeman on the roster. And he could use his gravity gun to make pigs fly!