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A number of reasons but one of the biggest is that I think these will be our final characters. Sakurai even repeated recently that Ultimate was pretty much a tribute to his best friend and mentor, Iwata, so I think they're going to go all out with these final characters. I'm predicting that everyone will be a big deal in their own right and a homerun. No punches pulled. This pass is going to be "never evers" and fan requests that go back double digits, in my opinion.

While I don't think it's the end until the man himself explicitly and unambiguously says so, that following type of lineup would be quite nice. Some of the communities here need to be given peace after so long.

On the topic of Pokemon, a number of my insider friends have told me that the Pokemon Company is an enormous pain in the ass to work with. They're hot **** and they know it. Sakurai has even gone into detail about how aggressive and nitpicky the Pokemon Company is about their IPs in Smash to the point that Pokemon fighters take a goofy amount of planning. Along with this, the Pokemon Company is also pretty staunchly against DLC with the Sword and Shield DLC basically being their first major undertaking but doing it more so for work efficiency and cost effectiveness more than anything else. Supposedly just getting Mewtwo back for Smash 4 was an enormous fight so I can't see anymore Pokemon characters happening.

That lines up with my theory in regards to why we didn't get any Sugimori art for the spirits at all until DLC started, though apparently negotiations with him aren't the problem after all. Doesn't surprise me that TPC would be difficult for no reason. It's such a shame, the Gen 8 supporters will be in full-on Seven Stages of Grief mode by the end of it if this all comes to pass…Maybe this is why we didn't get an Alola stage, either.

I dunno it just seems likely. The way Sakurai speaks about Pokemon during interviews and when he says he just goes and sees who is the new hot topic and how he just openly speaks about Pokemon in smash doesn’t really suggest that he thinks they are stingy. That and I’m fairly certain it’s misinformation being spread in terms of Sakurai even hinting at the Pokemon company being stingy as that isn’t a thing Sakurai or any game dev would do tbh. If anyone has a source please share it. And Sakurai himself has spoken on the topic of Pokemon in smash and said that Sakurai just took home some concept art of Greninja and made a moveset from there. Masuda has also spoken on it and he really just made it sound like an easy deal. That doesn’t scream stingy to me. That and we usually have quite a few new Pokemon every game. 64 and melee had 2, Brawl technically had 4 with 2 returning, smash 4 had 1 new Pokemon and 2 Pokemon that were very different from what they once were and had their own tag lines and ultimate had Incineroar and a tonne returning. I would much rather have another character but Pokemon just seems likely. All the Pokemon content we have had in smash doesn’t scream stingy and even if it did I don’t really see why stinginess would stop Sakurai now when he has done it several times in the past.

It's not a matter of being stingy, it's that they're a pain to work with. They are very strict about how Pokemon are depicted and which ones are used to represent the "brand." Lucario, Greninja, and Inceniroar were all chosen even before they even had names and in-game appearances. There was no debate. "You're using this Pokemon to represent the latest games and that's that." With that being said, the Pokemon Company is very serious about the Pokemon they pick.

On the topic of a lesser known character as DLC, if you subscribe to my "Road to 100" theory, we're at 99 at the end of this pass. This makes me believe that character 100 will be a tribute to Iwata somehow. Someone like Balloon Fighter or Lolo. People used to joke about this a lot but, since Melee, each game has had three "obligatory" characters: a Fire Emblem character representing the latest game, a Pokemon character representing the latest generation, and a goofy and obscure old character that like 5 people want. When Ultimate's just had Incineroar, everyone was just kind of like "oh, I guess that's it, huh" and then Byleth came so now the absence of a weird and obscure retro pick is grossly apparent and this might have been deliberate. Knowing Sakurai, I'm sure he has had someone in mind since development started but we'll have to wait to see who it is.

I think stingy and a pain to work with mean the same thing in terms of the subject. A pain in this subject means they are ungenerous and words along those lines and stingy means the same thing. Not exact but point still stands. So this Road to 100 theory suggests we maybe getting a retro character. I’m skeptical of that. I think Nintendo wants the DLC to sell and no matter how much people want to deny it, every character who has been DLC thus far is well known. Joker was from the newest and most popular Persona game who was nominated for GOTY, Hero was an icon in his own right, Banjo while undeniably not too well known, was well known enough within the community to warrant their inclusion based solely on requests, Terry while niche certainly helped pioneer the fighting game genre to what its became today and Byleth was a first party character who was from the best selling fire emblem game, was very recent and got nominated for quite a few awards. Something like a retro rep in comparison doesn’t really seem like it would sell. If they were going to add a retro rep it probably would have been base game but as resources were so sparsely to how much content they packed into Ultimate they had to make a few sacrifices. Iirc didn’t you say you thought these six would be the last in ultimate? I’m going to guess I was incorrect. But anyhow maybe a retro as a bonus but almost probably not DLC

6 plus a bonus to technically have 100 characters.

82 original characters + 7 Echoes + Alph + 7 Koopalings + 3 Heros = 100.

No offence but I’m absolutely astounded people are actually taking that seriously tbh. Too much of a stretch. Alts and distinct characters have a world of difference between them. Sakurai would not consider alts different characters even if they canonically are or are model swaps.