Nintendo produced a packed Nintendo Direct featuring Super Smash Bros. 4 last night, starring Masahiro Sakurai. They opened up with a bit of good news / bad news: the Nintendo 3DS version is due this summer, and the Wii U version was pegged for a winter release.
With that somewhat disappointing (at least for Wii U owners) piece of news out of the way, Sakurai focused on the actual content of the game(s) - and there will be lots of things to do in both versions.
All characters shown will appear in both titles, however, the stages will be different, with some only appearing in one version and those that are in both will look different from each other. The 3DS version will run at 60fps.
Transformations are no longer part of the game and as a result Zero Suit Samus and Sheik are added to the roster. Yoshi also returns. Two playable Pokémons - returning Charizard and newcomer Greninja - also join the roster, making the total 29.
Super Smash Bros. will offer two ways of playing online - "For Fun" or "For Glory" - this basically amounts to unranked and ranked matches where the latter removes any and all item use and puts the action on Final Destination versions of certain maps.
Smash Run is a fascinating new mode that is exclusive to Nintendo 3DS. Up to four players begin the mode exploring a enemy-filled dungeon, and have five minutes to collect items and power-ups. After the timer counts down, the players are moved to a battle arena where they duke it out.