Gematsu leaks

Fanart parodying the claims of the Gematsu leak and the general reactions and debates surrounding it. This fanart was also used in the original post to the now-locked Gematsu thread on Smashboards.

The Gematsu leak was a major and seemingly credible series of leaks of Super Smash Bros. 4's playable roster, reported by Sal Romano of the gaming site Gematsu after being given information from an anonymous tipster, that started from the initial E3 2013 reveal trailer, and subsequently correctly predicted the coming newcomers without getting any definitively wrong, for over a year. The leak's seeming infallibility attracted considerable attention, being covered by news sites, and dominated Smash 4 roster discussion and speculation for the year it remained alive. However, while it gotten an improbable amount of aspects correct, the leak also had made multiple incorrect assumptions, such as predicting reveal dates wrong, and not being able to specifically identify predicted characters. This sparked considerable debate about the actual legitimacy of the leak, though the the leaker's previous track record kept the vast majority of observers believing it to be fully legitimate.

The first leak/E3 2013

Before E3 2013, the owner of the gaming site Gematsu, Sal Romano, claimed to have received an email from an anonymous source claiming to know which newcomers would be introduced at E3 2013. Initially doubting the veracity of the letter, Romano jokingly posted the list to NeoGAF as a "unlikely prediction". Among the predicted newcomers were "Animal Crossing Guy" (turning out to be the Animal Crossing Villager); Capcom's Mega Man; the female trainer from Wii Fit; Little Mac from Punch-Out!!; Nintendo's Mii; and Namco's Pac-Man.

To the surprise of many observers, including Romano himself, the leak successfully predicted the reveal of the Villager, Mega Man, and female Wii Fit Trainer; the lattermost was especially considered surprising, as the character was one that no one thought of, with Masahiro Sakurai himself even stating that the character was one that "no one expected".

While Little Mac, Mii, and Pac-Man were not revealed at E3 as the email claimed, the leak having gotten all three of the revealed newcomers correct, including the considered to be nigh-impossible to predict Wii Fit Trainer, led to the majority to believe the leak to have legitimate information. As for why these three were not immediately revealed, some observers believed Sakurai decided to postpone their reveals for various speculated reasons, and that the characters would be revealed later on. Little Mac was later revealed as a playable character on the February 13, 2014 Nintendo Direct, but some observers found this prediction less surprising than the previous ones, due to the fact that Little Mac was a significantly speculated and requested character.

During the December 18th 2013 Nintendo Direct, Rosalina was revealed as a playable character, but the character was not implicated in the leak. While this arose some suspicion of the leaker's, most people believed that the leaker only knew the E3 2013 plans, or simply did not having full knowledge of the roster.

The second leak/the Smash Direct

A few hours before the Smash 4-centered Nintendo Direct, the leaker reportedly sent another email to Romano; the contents of the email continued to claim that Pac-Man and a Mii would still be playable, as well as adding predictions for Shulk from Xenoblade Chronicles; Palutena from Kid Icarus: Uprising (tying in with another rumor); Chrom from Fire Emblem: Awakening; the Chorus Kids from Rhythm Heaven (referred to by their Japanese name of Chorus Men in the leak); and an unknown Pokémon from Pokémon X and Y (referred to as "Pokemon from X/Y" in the leak).

Toward the conclusion of the Nintendo Direct presentation, Greninja, who made its debut in Pokémon X and Y, was revealed as a playable character. However, this prediction, while technically correct, came under much scrutiny, as a vague blanket prediction was much too general of a guess, and with the popularity of the games, many observers believed that the prediction was merely a logical deduction, failing to show actual insider information like the E3 2013 leak.

On May 19, 2014 Adam Howden (who voiced Shulk in Xenoblade Chronicles), posted about his future work on Twitter:

“

Done some VO on several very exciting games so far this year. I'll tell you what they are when I know my balls won't be cut off for telling.

”

Amid this, some observers have speculated that among these projects include potentially voicing Shulk in Super Smash Bros. 4, particularly in conjunction with the Gematsu leaks, though this speculation was not confirmed.

The third leak/E3 2014

A day before E3 2014, Romano received another email from the leaker. The leaker continued to claim that Miis, Pac-Man, Palutena, Chrom, Shulk, and the Chorus Kids would be playable; they did not implicate any new characters, but they added that there would be plans for post-launch character downloadable content, and that there was internal debate about keeping either Ness or Lucas, with the latter being "likely to get the cut". During the E3 Nintendo Digital Event of 2014, both Mii Fighter and Palutena, with Pac-Man being confirmed later that day, confirming all characters implicated in the original leak, and leaving only Shulk, Chrom, and the Chorus Kids of the previous leaks left to be announced.

While the Chorus Kids were not announced in any capacity, a Sneaky Spirit, an enemy from the Rhythm Heaven series, was spotted during a Smash Run demo on E3 2014. This made it the first and so far only representation of the Rhythm Heaven series in Smash. As noted by some fans of the series, all Smash Run enemies came from franchises represented with characters or stages, or else from Brawl's Subspace Emissary, suggesting the possibility of other Rhythm Heaven representation, and strengthening the prospect of the Chorus Kids. No other Rhythm Heaven representation was revealed.

While the result of E3 2014 confirmed all the first leak's claimed playable characters, the veracity of the subsequent leaks remained unclear and were a subject of debate. While the second leak accurately slated Palutena as playable, she was a character widely expected to be playable, due to Sakurai having worked on Kid Icarus: Uprising and the presence of the, at the time, non-debunked "leaked" images that had been posted on multiple news sites. Additionally, while "Pokémon from Pokémon X and Y" was technically correct, the leaker's inability to specifically state Greninja and only being able to do so with a vague blanket statement was scrutinised, and was seen by some as a "safe guess", rather than having actual inside knowledge. The leaker also never implicated Rosalina as being playable, and has never implicated anything outside newcomers that was later confirmed as correct, bringing doubt into the extent of the leaker's inside knowledge. The prevailing theories were that the leaker had legitimate information for the first leak, but made up predictions for the subsequent leaks (supported by the fact it consisted entirely of what were seen as very "safe" guesses outside the Chorus Men), or the leaker had significantly outdated information. The latter is supported by the fact he could only refer to Greninja as "Pokémon from Pokémon X and Y", when Sakurai confirmed that he decided on Greninja well before the release of Pokémon X and Y (which was six months before the second leak and the Smash Direct), and the fact that only three of the original six were revealed at E3 2013, when the leaker initially said all of them would be. The leaker also just only brought up the Ness versus Lucas debate at E3 2014 with a non-definitive answer about it; observers noted that it would be unlikely that the final character roster would not be finalized well before this, as the final few months of game development are typically devoted for game balanced, debugging, and other such tweaks. This, however, could have been referring to earlier in development.

The fall of the Gematsu leak/July 14th 2014 character reveal

On July 11th, 2014, Sakurai made a Miiverse post announcing that a trailer revealing a newcomer would be streamed on July 14th. On July 13th 2014, the day before the newcomer reveal, Sal Romano posted another email he received from the leaker, which told him "to enjoy Shulk". Then on the morning of the reveal, the leaker sent another email, claiming that Shulk was definitely going to be revealed, with the exact quote:

“	I only know what has been done, not what or when they will be made available. Sakurai may change his mind, and he does all the time. Shulk will not be changed.	”
—the Gematsu leaker

However, Shulk was not revealed as expected and claimed by the leaker, but instead, the Fire Emblem characters of Lucina and Robin were revealed as playable along with Captain Falcon. The reveal went against the leaker; not only was a prediction brought forth proven completely wrong, but neither character were implicated by the leaks, and Chrom himself, after being first implicated in the first leak, was relegated to a role in Robin's Final Smash. The strength of the leak was that while it gotten reveal dates wrong and at times glossed over details or was overly vague, it never got a character completely wrong. Following this turn of events, Romano contacted the leaker for an explanation, but the leaker did not respond to the inquiry.

Aftermath

The reveal of two newcomers never implicated by the leak, and the disconfirmation of Chrom, brought even more discussion on the leak's now-shattered credibility. Defenders of the leak argued that the leak, as commonly theorised, was outdated information obtained from the beginning of development, and that Chrom was intended to be included in the game, but replaced with Robin and/or Lucina mid-development. However, in a Famitsu column after the reveal, Sakurai stated that he while he considered Chrom, he was always in favor of adding Robin instead, as he saw the former as not having anything unique to differentiate him from Marth and Ike, while the latter provided a plethora of unique moveset options and better represented Fire Emblem. Lucina on the other hand, was initially conceptualised as an alternative costume for Marth, and then upgraded to a separate playable character when Sakurai decided to make some differences to her. As such, it would seem Chrom was never actually planned to be playable, going against the claim that the leaker's information was outdated, and instead supports the notion that the leaker made up information and guesses in the subsequent leaks.

The overall consensus is that the leaker had legitimate information in the first leak, but the information in the subsequent leaks was highly dubious, whether from being severely outdated or just being made up, making the subsequent leaks unreliable for predicting the roster.

The fate of Shulk and the Chorus Kids remains to be seen, and the true extent of the leaker's knowledge, as well as details about the leaker himself, are unknown as of now.

See also

• List of rumors
• Leak