DLC Finalized; Sakurai Makes Official Statement About Requests

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s DLC line-up is now complete. This time the selection was made entirely by Nintendo. I decide if we can create a fighter based on their selection, then come up with the plan.

— 桜井 政博 / Masahiro Sakurai (@Sora_Sakurai) November 6, 2018

Masahiro Sakurai has announced on Twitter yesterday that the DLC lineup for the five Fighter Pack DLC characters has been finalized. Interestingly, the entire line-up has been selected by Nintendo this time around, with Sakurai accepting the selection if it is realizable.

It’s great to dream about your favorite character joining the battle and I appreciate your passion, but please try to stay on topic when replying to tweets and refrain from flooding us, and other users, with requests when we're not specifically asking for feedback. Thank you!

— 桜井 政博 / Masahiro Sakurai (@Sora_Sakurai) November 7, 2018

Sakurai sent out another Tweet shortly afterwards to politely ask fans to not repeatedly flood him and Nintendo with requests for characters.


Author’s Note: Given this new information, who do you all think are the five DLC fighters? Let us know, but try not to flood Sakurai with your ideas.

 

I appreciate that he has been beyond busy, and that certain corners of the smash fanbase can be overwhelming and obnoxious, but at the same time..... this is his job. Feedback and requests from your customers is surely something you want to take into consideration, even after the first five characters for DLC have been locked. Surely you would want that information for the next DLC pass (if there is one) or for the eventual sequel?

Because "put X into the game!" isn't feedback, especially when it's posted in response to something that doesn't have anything to do with character addition. Content creators can't take everything fans says into consideration, most of it is usually much ado about nothing, anyway.

 

Are people missing the "I decide if we can create a fighter based on their selection" part? Sakurai still has a say in the end. I also don't get why people are assuming if Nintendo chooses it'll all be promotional characters, but more importantly the underlying assumption that Sakurai doesn't do that kinda stuff, Corrin and pretty much every current-gen Pokemon character making it to Smash disproves that readily. I think people should give Nintendo (or rather the top level people presumably who are gonna decide this) more credit.

Also, I really love that 2nd tweet. It's very annoying when Nintendo/Sakurai posts anything related to Smash. They could be posting about how you should pre-order Smash or about a new character, and the replies are flooded with "PLS ADD [insert character here]" or memes about them, which is completely irrelevant and to me just looks childish and annoying, and somewhat ungrateful that people can't appreciate the game for what it is and just continually ask for more, more, and more. I wonder if the fact Sakurai tweeted this in English means Japanese fans aren't as relentless about it...though it could just be that majority of the fans speak in English so those are the ones worth addressing.

He tweeted in Japanese too at the same time right before those two in English, so I think gen just wanted to get it out to everyone, hah.

 

He tweeted in Japanese too at the same time right before those two in English, so I think gen just wanted to get it out to everyone, hah.

The one about "don't flood the comments with requests" is only in English tho

It really shows something about the English-speaking Smash fans imo

 

They will; the only reason K. Rool and Ridley got into the game was cause of fans begging. Sakurai wrote a column describing how Ridley wouldn't work in Smash and I feel like he has a personal vendetta against K. Rool for some reason.

Indeed, but you gotta remember that the discussion was at an all time high when Smash 4 was initially announced. They were only implemented in this iteration, where it is much easier to actually get updated on what the worldwide fan feedback has been.

Now that Sakurai has officially stated that the DLC is predetermined, that also means that no current fan feedback will have any impact on the planned DLC releases. Will there be more than that? Who knows, I doubt it. Will the hypothetical second batch of DLC also be Ballot based (which in fact was a part of Smash 4's DLC releases so I dunno why you think he has some sort of weird vendetta against fans), who knows probably not?

I dunno why you are so upset that Sakurai changed his mind about something later down the line, but if it makes you feel better I'm not one to judge. I just don't see much of a reason to insult him personally.

 

I think Nintendo is feeling the heat after the last Direct which wasn't that popular. I remember Brawl and Wii U ending on a high note but this one ended on a thud. The Spirits mode is kind of lame and all of the characters since the August direct were not big fan pleasers. Nintendo would have been better off showing Incenoroar and Isabella in August and saving KRool and Belmont for the end.

Brawl ended with (announced) Olimar and (unlocking) ROB.
Sm4sh ended with (announced) Shulk, (unlockable) Duck Hunt (you could possibly argue Dark Pit), and DLC of Corrin and Bayonetta.

There's no way to slice this to call it a 'high note,' you're wrong.

 

I feel so bad for him working his dream job instead of slaving away in a factory job or Corporate America. As stated, his job is easy compared to average Joe.

LOL you clearly know nothing about game development, economics, or Corporate Japan.

 

I don't know how to feel about the Smash DLC characters already being chosen without feedback from the community.

Yes characters such as Ridley, Simon, K.Rool, and Ken were heavily asked by the community to be included but the one thing that people forget is that a heavy amount of the cast were heavily dictated from Nintendo. I believe the 5 DLC characters not being based on the community's opinion or inclusion is a very poor move on not only Sakurai's part but on Nintendo's as well, because I believe now the DLC characters are all mainly going to be advertisement related. To build hype they have left one spot for a character like Geno (or one last heavily requested character) which will probably be the first announced in February, enticing players let down their walls and open their wallets for the next 4 characters that no one asked for (such as Pirhana Plant). The 4 upcoming DLC characters are probably from new Nintendo titles (such as the new Fire Emblem or Pokemon, ect.) that are coming out throughout the year. So if you saw a character that wasn't a assist trophy nor a playable character how do you even have a voice your opinion, because for characters like Waluigi, Shadow, and Skull Kid, people are not only pissed they didn't make it in the game as a playable character, they are pissed they got so high in the Smash Ballot in 2014 and were promised more consideration for the next game. And now those characters are back in the same assist trophy limbo they have been for many years, which when the devs were question about it, they leave off saying "maybe the next game or later down the road." Which kinda goes back a few months with the Waluigi controversy, I don't agree/condone what some people did with the spamming of emails and tweets, but it shows that some people are very dedicated and want more say when it comes to roster, and I think Nintendo themselves need to address this. How I am seeing it is instead of Nintendo realizing that fans want more say, they immediately shunned suggestions and inclusions with Smash's roster away and label optimism for the game as harassment and now don't want say from the community period.

Which now that we know the final roster list and that we have no say in the future DLC characters, wouldn't that leave any fan base a little bit peeved?

 

While I do think that a couple characters will be tied in to advertising upcoming games, I have some faith that they'll choose at least one, probably two fan favorite characters. For all we know, Nintendo might be pulling from the past ballot candidates exclusively. I simply don't think we have enough information to judge Nintendo or Sakurai for what the choices are going to be.

If we get all advertisement characters, I'll take the loss, but I'm hopeful.

 

I don't know how to feel about the Smash DLC characters already being chosen without feedback from the community.

Yes characters such as Ridley, Simon, K.Rool, and Ken were heavily asked by the community to be included but the one thing that people forget is that a heavy amount of the cast were heavily dictated from Nintendo. I believe the 5 DLC characters not being based on the community's opinion or inclusion is a very poor move on not only Sakurai's part but on Nintendo's as well, because I believe now the DLC characters are all mainly going to be advertisement related. To build hype they have left one spot for a character like Geno (or one last heavily requested character) which will probably be the first announced in February, enticing players let down their walls and open their wallets for the next 4 characters that no one asked for (such as Pirhana Plant). The 4 upcoming DLC characters are probably from new Nintendo titles (such as the new Fire Emblem or Pokemon, ect.) that are coming out throughout the year. So if you saw a character that wasn't a assist trophy nor a playable character how do you even have a voice your opinion, because for characters like Waluigi, Shadow, and Skull Kid, people are not only pissed they didn't make it in the game as a playable character, they are pissed they got so high in the Smash Ballot in 2014 and were promised more consideration for the next game. And now those characters are back in the same assist trophy limbo they have been for many years, which when the devs were question about it, they leave off saying "maybe the next game or later down the road." Which kinda goes back a few months with the Waluigi controversy, I don't agree/condone what some people did with the spamming of emails and tweets, but it shows that some people are very dedicated and want more say when it comes to roster, and I think Nintendo themselves need to address this. How I am seeing it is instead of Nintendo realizing that fans want more say, they immediately shunned suggestions and inclusions with Smash's roster away and label optimism for the game as harassment and now don't want say from the community period.

Which now that we know the final roster list and that we have no say in the future DLC characters, wouldn't that leave any fan base a little bit peeved?

This whole post assumes Nintendo won't take fan demand into consideration, which is baseless. They have ballot results and spamming "X FOR SMASH!" messages to everything Nintendo and Sakurai posts won't make them decide on a character they previously didn't knew they were popular.

Also when anyone said "maybe the next game or later down the road" about the Assist Trophies? Citation please.

And I've said it before, you can't give fans a say on the game until they decide the whole roster. You have to draw the line at some place.

 

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Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s DLC line-up is now complete. This time the selection was made entirely by Nintendo. I decide if we can create a fighter based on their selection, then come up with the plan.

— 桜井 政博 / Masahiro Sakurai (@Sora_Sakurai) November 6, 2018

Masahiro Sakurai has announced on Twitter yesterday that the DLC lineup for the five Fighter Pack DLC characters has been finalized. Interestingly, the entire line-up has been selected by Nintendo this time around, with Sakurai accepting the selection if it is realizable.

It’s great to dream about your favorite character joining the battle and I appreciate your passion, but please try to stay on topic when replying to tweets and refrain from flooding us, and other users, with requests when we're not specifically asking for feedback. Thank you!

— 桜井 政博 / Masahiro Sakurai (@Sora_Sakurai) November 7, 2018

Sakurai sent out another Tweet shortly afterwards to politely ask fans to not repeatedly flood him and Nintendo with requests for characters.


Author’s Note: Given this new information, who do you all think are the five DLC fighters? Let us know, but try not to flood Sakurai with your ideas.

Y'know what? I'm content with the final roster. Whoever we get is whoever we get. I'm gonna welcome all DLC with open arms and not complain like I did when Bayonetta and Corrin got into Smash 4. Personally, I'm more interested in what new Stages and possible Modes they might add in the future.

 

"Sakurai hates K.Rool" is a baseless claim made up by some K.Rool fans who feel the need to victimize themselves. If Sakurai hated K.Rool, his moveset wouldn't reflect so much personality and references. There's no reason for a grown man to have a personal vendetta with a bunch of pixels, btw.

I think he just personally doesn't like the character; he couldn't reveal him without trolling the fans. He had to put him in cause he was probably like the second highest ballot pick.

 

I appreciate that he has been beyond busy, and that certain corners of the smash fanbase can be overwhelming and obnoxious, but at the same time..... this is his job. Feedback and requests from your customers is surely something you want to take into consideration, even after the first five characters for DLC have been locked. Surely you would want that information for the next DLC pass (if there is one) or for the eventual sequel?

Not quite.
Listening to feedback is part of the job but a game designer should also be allowed to exercise their creative freedom.
Devoting all your time to see what people want is objectively a bad thing that can become a waste of time and energy.
This doesn't mean that they should never listen, because listening to people is what got us Ridley and King Rool, removed tripping, etc. But places like tweeter tend to bring in a lot of noise rather than something constructive so its better to have a platform for that like the Ballot (Saw some death threats over Piranha Plant in his twitter page when he posted a tweet honoring the memory of Incineroar's voice actor, ffs).

With that said, he made the statement in preparation to the fact that this time Nintendo were the ones who picked the characters, so there may a lock on them already which means that they may not be taking feedback anymore. Don't see why people take a polite and harmless statement at face value.

I think he just personally doesn't like the character; he couldn't reveal him without trolling the fans. He had to put him in cause he was probably like the second highest ballot pick.

That's overthinking it and making an awful lot of assumptions. I doubt he ever hated the character, at worst, he may have been culturally biased since DKC games aren't that big in Japan and a character like Rool doesn't enjoy that much exposure there as in the west. His long absence from the series didn't help matters either.
Either way, he listened and delivered a crowd pleaser. No man who hates the King can make such a well crafted and referential moveset for him. And judging by his tweets at the time of the reveal he was excited about it.
Don't be one of those fans who take details like the Dedede fake out in the trailer as a personal attack and speak accusations based on non facts. The guy likes to have his fun and I doubt his actions reflect a hidden sinister agenda to offend the consumers.

 

Brawl ended with (announced) Olimar and (unlocking) ROB.
Sm4sh ended with (announced) Shulk, (unlockable) Duck Hunt (you could possibly argue Dark Pit), and DLC of Corrin and Bayonetta.

There's no way to slice this to call it a 'high note,' you're wrong.

Smash 4 ended with the Mewtwo announcement! Bowser Jr, Duck Hunt, and other fan favorites were also in the mix.

Brawl ended with Sonic (or at least very close... he came within a couple of months of the launch). Brawl also had the SSE. Brawl is hard to define since you had daily updates but Brawl was nearly perfect when it came to single player content and features (it was bad with regard to the general combat and obviously the character roster is weak when you stack it up to Smash 4).

 

LOL you clearly know nothing about game development, economics, or Corporate Japan.

Actually, I work for a large Japanese company so yes I do.

 

smash is already a game for Nintendo to promote thing, but smash has every big time Nintendo Character in. Most new DLC will have to be a 'side character' or a character from a new franchise.

 

And considering how each fighter has their own stage and music, it feels more likely that they are each from an unrepresented series.

 

Not quite.
Listening to feedback is part of the job but a game designer should also be allowed to exercise their creative freedom.
Devoting all your time to see what people want is objectively a bad thing that can become a waste of time and energy.
This doesn't mean that they should never listen, because listening to people is what got us Ridley and King Rool, removed tripping, etc. But places like tweeter tend to bring in a lot of noise rather than something constructive so its better to have a platform for that like the Ballot (Saw some death threats over Piranha Plant in his twitter page when he posted a tweet honoring the memory of Incineroar's voice actor, ffs).

With that said, he made the statement in preparation to the fact that this time Nintendo were the ones who picked the characters, so there may a lock on them already which means that they may not be taking feedback anymore. Don't see why people take a polite and harmless statement at face value.

I don't think he should devote all his time to it, just analyse what you do receive for future reference - like you said though, a ballot or forum for this kind of thing would be better. And certain corners of the fanbase (unfortunately the most vocal) will voice these requests in inappropriate places, or react in an aggressive manner - I mean, death threats is utterly ridiculous. I personally don't have a problem with Piranha Plant - it wouldn't be my first pick, but it's not going to stop me buying the game - it was a surprise and one that exercised Sakurai's creativity, so of course I wouldn't want him to focus all his time and energy on what the fans want.

 

I definitely did not expect that they were already done with the DLC. Vergeben, where you at?

 

Does not mean they'll all be Nintendo characters! But this does kind sound like characters they'd want to promote. Obviously Sakurai will have final say and please people yes, there is characters people want but don't bombard them with requests. Let them do this and move on all the best that's that.

Also please take a break after Sakurai!

 

Well then, Steve just got way more likely now

 

If Nintendo made the decision, I strongly believe they will pick recent and relevant characters to cross-promote their games/platforms more. I'm really curious!

 

I definitely did not expect that they were already done with the DLC. Vergeben, where you at?

To be clear, they're done selecting the characters, not creating them.

 

It would be funny if one of the characters in the fighter pass turned out to be Goku.

 

It would be funny if one of the characters in the fighter pass turned out to be Goku.

Don't jinx it...

 

Why does the Smash fandom hate Dragon Ball Z so much?

Oh well, anyway... Do you think we should move our newcomer ideas to Smash 6 since there are only five characters left to guess, Sakurai is not accepting requests and so many characters have been practically deconfirmed?

 

Why does the Smash fandom hate Dragon Ball Z so much?

It's not that the Smash fandom hates Dragon Ball Z.

It's that they hate the idea of Goku, a manga originated character, being playable in a game that celebrates gaming.

Sure, he has games, but so does Batman.

 

I think he just personally doesn't like the character; he couldn't reveal him without trolling the fans. He had to put him in cause he was probably like the second highest ballot pick.

I find using the fake-out as an argument very hilarious because I think it argues the opposite of what you're saying. The moment I saw the fake out what I immediately thought of was K Rool's death fake out in DKC1, so if anything, I think that moment was actually fanservice rather than "trolling the fans" at their expense. It gave K Rool's reveal a flavor characteristic of himself, because K Rool himself is somewhat of a troll, and hey that's something Sakurai himself has in common with the character as well so I doubt he hates him!

 

In translation "Stop bugging me about Waluigi".

 

I find using the fake-out as an argument very hilarious because I think it argues the opposite of what you're saying. The moment I saw the fake out what I immediately thought of was K Rool's death fake out in DKC1, so if anything, I think that moment was actually fanservice rather than "trolling the fans" at their expense. It gave K Rool's reveal a flavor characteristic of himself, because K Rool himself is somewhat of a troll, and hey that's something Sakurai himself has in common with the character as well so I doubt he hates him!

Dude, the character should've been in since Brawl; he never would have made it in had it not been for the ballot.

 

Well, he did tell us to never ask him for anything ever again...

 

Dude, the character should've been in since Brawl; he never would have made it in had it not been for the ballot.

...in your subjective opinion. That still doesn't prove that Sakurai hates K Rool or with malicious intent didn't add him in.

 

Well, he did tell us to never ask him for anything ever again...

No he didn't.

He simply said that flooding him with fan requests doesn't change anything about the DLC since it's been finalized already.

 

I believe the 5 DLC characters not being based on the community's opinion or inclusion is a very poor move... how do you even have a voice your opinion, because for characters like Waluigi, Shadow, and Skull Kid, people are not only pissed they didn't make it in the game as a playable character, they are pissed they got so high in the Smash Ballot in 2014 and were promised more consideration for the next game.

You have no idea what Nintendo is going to pick, stop propagating this nonsense.
Additionally, the three characters you mentioned by name have in no way proven to have scored highly on the ballot. They don't even score highly on the fan-made ballots, I don't think they've been on them at all.

 

They don't even score highly on the fan-made ballots, I don't think they've been on them at all.

This is semi-true, mostly because every one differs and some actually do have these characters and they score highly. I recall Skull Kid topping every other character in a ballot pre-Smash 4 days.

However, the problem with fan-made ballots is they're spread so thinly so you can't justify them for a character's popularity.

Not even the Smash ballot is a great take away from what the fans want for Ultimate because it was done during Smash 4 and players generally thought it was for Smash 4, characters like Waluigi, Shadow, Ridley, and Skull Kid despite being popular characters were essentially deemed deconfirmed in general due to their status in-game as assists and as a boss in Ridley's case.

 

This is semi-true, mostly because every one differs and some actually do have these characters and they score highly. I recall Skull Kid topping every other character in a ballot pre-Smash 4 days.

Are you referring to the vgchartz one? 4chan raided that specifically to vote for Skull Kid. In other words, it was rigged.

 

Are you referring to the vgchartz one? 4chan raided that specifically to vote for Skull Kid. In other words, it was rigged.

Huh.

Still aids to that point that ballots in general aren't good indicators.

 

Idk if the whole Smash community will listen to Sakurai hence he stated he doesn't want anyone to flood him with request even though the characters are already picked. whoever the five are i can't wait to see them. Also if Geno makes it in as DLC congrats for him, but i don't know for sure. if he was actually and i mean. Actually selected as one of the DLC fighters then a lot of Geno fans will be happy.

But well done trolling the Waluigi fans Sakurai they deserved the punishment from you.

 

I respect this. Still sad about Waluigi tho.

 

I respect this. Still sad about Waluigi tho.

Yes, but still. He has the decision to decide who gets into Ultimate as a fighter, assist trophy, echo fighter or a semi-clone fighter. But waluigi has potential but the only thing that was against him was how many games he was in.

 

Yes, but still. He has the decision to decide who gets into Ultimate as a fighter, assist trophy, echo fighter or a semi-clone fighter. But waluigi has potential but the only thing that was against him was how many games he was in.

ye but he's been in more games than some of the playable chars.