Todd Howard's words from the podcast:
25:10 Companion characters. That was a really fun and really cool part in Fallout. What’s going on with that?
“We are approaching it in a different way. I would not expect the deep personalities and uniqueness with a low number of companions. We are aiming for a much, much higher number of companions that you can hire or they become your friends and they come with you. The general direction is to make it a bit more dynamic, and have more people that you can decide to have come with you. And in that we sacrifice them having a lot of depth or personality or individual stories. And there still will be some like that. But that’s kind of the direction we’re headed right now. We don’t know the exact number of NPCs in the world that could become your companion, but we’re hoping it’s a big number.”
http://theelderscrollsskyrim.com/bethesdas-todd-howard-podcast-interview/
25:10 Companion characters. That was a really fun and really cool part in Fallout. What’s going on with that?
“We are approaching it in a different way. I would not expect the deep personalities and uniqueness with a low number of companions. We are aiming for a much, much higher number of companions that you can hire or they become your friends and they come with you. The general direction is to make it a bit more dynamic, and have more people that you can decide to have come with you. And in that we sacrifice them having a lot of depth or personality or individual stories. And there still will be some like that. But that’s kind of the direction we’re headed right now. We don’t know the exact number of NPCs in the world that could become your companion, but we’re hoping it’s a big number.”
http://theelderscrollsskyrim.com/bethesdas-todd-howard-podcast-interview/
Sounds like the best of both worlds. We'll still get a few companions with depth, but we'll also have a lot of regular companions to choose from.