Could we get more characters from non-Nintendo franchises?

[PhantomZkullX79]

This is purely speculation, but can we expect to see newcomers from franchises made by other companies? If so, who? If not, who could appear in the next game?

Honestly, I'd like to see Rayman become playable at some point. He appeared as a trophy in Smash, so he does have a chance.

 

[Homelessvagrant]

I think it depends on two factors:

1) Popularity in the smash ballot
2) The 3rd party's relationship and willingness to work with Nintendo

With that being said I believe Rayman is one of the safer bets, given his popularity amongst smash fans during the ballot. However I will say I believe all third party characters are at a slight disadvantage due to the fact that they are restricted by an additional criteria in which 1st and 2nd party characters are not.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Along with the popularity and the inter company politics, timing is also involved. There’s a lot of talk about every other game getting Switch ports that bring a lot of new names to the table.

Unfortunately, the roster was made around Dec 2015, so most of those may have had little ballot support.

I feel Rayman has pretty good chances, since he was in Sm4sh, but most of the third parties people like may not have had enough support at the right time. Hits me pretty hard since I really want Dovahkiin, but didn’t even start to consider the possibility until Skyrim’s switch release in mid 2017.

I hope we get another way to communicate our wished for DLC.

 

[verysleepywolf]

Rayman has a strong legacy of games and appeared on many Nintendo consoles. Ubisoft has probably already approached Nintendo about him. I think he's one of those characters that will be destined to appear in SSB sooner or later.

Banjo-Kazooie also has a legacy and lots of vocal fans. What they lack in quantity of games they make up for in how crucial they were for the N64 era. We know Phil Spencer tweeted about them, but the finer details of this kind of deal between Microsoft and Nintendo make it hard to really say.

Simon Belmont appears to be a strong contender for a second Konami character, seeing how generous Konami is being with their IPs this time around. The Vergeben leak also seems to point towards Simon's inclusion, however Vergeben is only maybe 70% reliable and he could still be making obvious guesses. Simon does seem possible and has been a popular request for a long time.

Sora might have the most popularity out of all these characters, however. I can't tell you how many times Sora has been mentioned by the SSB community. We know Square is cooperative, however Disney and their vile/backhanded business strategies might be enough to deter Sakurai from even considering an approach to the terrifying corporate giant (lest we see a sudden surge of Disney content that ruins our beloved SSB). That's really the only factor preventing Sora, which is a good enough reason for me. Seeing how Disney has tried to acquire Nintendo repeatedly and always been denied, there are definitely sour feelings there. So Sora has one very big obstacle while the stars are aligned everywhere else (in relevance, popularity, etc.)