This is Sony stepping in and showing us their side of a brawl-style game. And to be honest, this game has me HOOKED. I got this for Christmas as well and every minute I have free I want to play. I can't put it down and when I'm at my friends house playing (they bought it too), we spend hours and hours playing from dinner until really late (past 3AM).
If you haven't yet, try the Stock Limit mode that gives everyone lives rather than a timed mode or X amount of kills to win.
I've played both games, including Super Smash Bros for the N64 (classic, don't get me wrong) and I will pick the new Battle Royale from Sony over Nintendo's any day.
Edit: Just read previous posts, yeah the characters could have been better but once you play with them and see how they are, their moves and specials, etc. you'll agree that Sony did a good job on picking characters.
Would love to have Crash in there though!