Alright, since we're all losing our minds now,
I'm going to put my thoughts down on this and try to clear some things up.
First off, please note that Sakurai is saying
"Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s DLC line-up is now complete." Not that it has been complete, or they completed months ago. But that it is
now complete. As in, they've only now finally finished choosing the DLC characters and thinking of how they'll work. Not that they've finished creating them, as it hasn't been nearly long enough since the game has gone gold to finish them.
This means there's a chance that, in fact, recent characters (anyone from games after early 2016) could be part of the DLC lineup. Of course, this goes against what he said the final smash direct, but yet again, what he said in that direct goes against what Bill had said about how they were handling Smash DLC.
Second off, please note what he said.
"This time the selection was made entirely by Nintendo." This doesn't mean no 3rd Party characters.
It means that, we may get a lot of 1st Party characters, but some 3rd Parties as well. Nintendo chose them, but they could've chosen them for promotional reasons, trying to gather attention for franchises on the switch, or games coming to the switch soon that we've yet to hear of, 3rd and 1st party. This doesn't eliminate 3rd parties entirely, but it limits our options to "Which 3rd parties would Nintendo want in Smash? How would it help them for this 3rd party to get in smash besides making money off of DLC?" Geno's chances are hurt, because we don't know how badly Nintendo themselves want him. DQ's chances increase immensely because of this, as are Chocobo's or any FF character's. Sora's chances are, admittedly, very hurt as well. However, characters like Sora
and 2B (Basically 3rd party franchises who've yet to have a game on the switch, but can get one in the
nier near future)
potentially have a chance if their inclusion is anything like Isabelle's; In other words, their announcement and reveal coincides with the announcement of their game arriving to the Switch at a later date or that same day. Banjo is still a potential fit, due to the potential 64 Mini.
Lastly, the end of his tweet. "
I decide if we can create a fighter based on their selection, then come up with the plan." The wording of this suggests that Nintendo didn't give Sakurai specific 5 fighters, but rather, a large list of characters, 1st party and potentially 3rd party, which Sakurai would have to pick 5 characters from said large list based off of if he wants to do something with given characters or can. This means Nintendo decided far more than 5 characters for smash, gave Sakurai a list and told him "Choose 5 of these you think you can make something good with," and essentially to throw the other choices away. This means Sakurai still has some level of control as to who gets to be in Smash, only it has to be off of the list of characters Nintendo gave him.
It's not the end of the world. In fact, this kind of excites me.