Sakurai revealed on SmashBros.com that you'll be able to mix it up through Wi-Fi with opponents around the world. You'll have two options for finding challengers – first, you'll be able to look for opponents among those players who you've registered as friends, with the "With Friends" option. This will necessitate entering in a 12-digit friend code from that person, similar to how Pokemon Battle Revolution and Mario Strikers Charged have handled friends lists. You'll be able to store up to 64 friends in this way.
Second, you'll be able to take on all comers, including strangers from around the globe, with the "With Anyone" option. You won't get any personal information about your opponents this way, so you won't know who it is you're playing. And no records of your wins, losses or anything else like that will be kept here – that means no online leaderboards or competing to be the best Smasher in the world. "With Anyone" seems to be geared solely for players who just want human intelligence controlling their opponents, rather than the Wii's AI. This will probably be disappointing to many, but it's definitely the more safe option.
And in keeping with that sense of safety, in-battle communication has been limited. You'll get absolutely no means of communicating with your opponents in "With Anyone" matches, and even with your friends you'll be limited to just simple text messages, keyed to your character's Taunt maneuver. This means a big thumbs-down to the idea of a headset and voice chat, barring some radical change in the next two and a half months. We've recently opined that this is a considerable oversight on Nintendo's part – time will tell how players will react to the exclusion.
But, to end on a brighter note, Sakurai finished up the big reveal with the confirmation of the return of a beloved character from Melee – the Sandbag. The big bag of beans with two sad eyes is back, and ready for more painful punishment. Whereas he starred in Home Run Mode in Melee, now he'll be put in place as a mini-game distraction for waiting players while each match loads. (He may, in fact, be back for Home Run Mode as well. That's a likely asssumption.) Also, interestingly, the bottom of the Sandbag screenshot shows that Player 3 is in the process of selecting the stage. This suggests that arena choice passes from player to player between matches, and stages won't be chosen randomly by the computer. It's possible that certain stages may be unselectable for play through Wi-Fi, though Sakurai's attitude seems to be ahead-of-time apologetic – that you can set up a match how you want, but that you may have to deal with slower connection times as a result.
