A portion of an IGN interview with Sakurai...

IGN: Brawl seems like the perfect game to introduce a Wii headset for voice chat. Why have you avoided this?

Masahiro Sakurai: Well, when I first started making Smash Bros. Brawl, I thought it would be wonderful if online battles between friends had voice chat and potentially keyboard based chat as well. But there are all sorts of rules and regulations regarding communication on the Wii platform and so it was apparent to me that it just wouldn't come together, we weren't going to be able to do it, so we decided to cancel that feature. I'm very sorry about that. But if you're really desperate for it, you could set up Skype by your game station and go at it with a friend if you like.

IGN: We have to ask because there are so many rumors about this. Are there any hidden characters to come? Can you unlock more hidden fighters by way of WiiConnect24 or will you offer new downloadable content -- new fighters, for example. -- using the service?

Masahiro Sakurai: No. There are no characters that can be unlocked via connecting to WiiConnect24 or interacting in that fashion. And I may be mistaken here, but the Wii doesn't have a hard drive -- it's a disc-based system -- so I don't think we'll be doing that, I don't think it's going to happen.