Not if he gets an early build of the game (like happened with Three House)
Byleth still got released 6 months after Three Houses launched
despite Sakurai having an early build of the game, so by that logic.... yeah, Nahobino's not coming out in 2021 if it'd be him.
And Three Houses was a Nintendo game, so Sakurai would probably have had an easier time getting an early build of that game than an early build of a third-party game since Nintendo is always keeping an eye on the stuff Sakurai makes.
or keeps in touch with Atlus during development.
Can still be kinda unreliable even if the two are super up-to-date unless Atlus is 100% commiting to everything they're doing first try and never scrapping any content that could potentially be used as a moveset... which seems like an unrealistic path to me.
Smash Roy having a completely different personality than canon Roy due to Sakurai not being able to get some info on time probably gave Sakurai the wake-up call to not make major content based on games that isn't finalized yet.
Nahobino, assuming it gets released in September/October, would have started development March/April if we go by the "DLC fighters take around 6 months of development" thing. At that point, SMT V might not be finalized but obviously all the key elements of the game, characters and story are already decided.
I don't think it's that hard. The hard part IMO comes from Nintendo actually going with the new protag and if they want to release a character before it's game of origin comes out.
Yeah, I agree on that being the hard part. It feels like too huge of a gamble to release a character months before that character's game is even out.
And besides, even with a proper release date, SMTV isn't immune to delays. There's always a chance it might not make it in store shelves in 2021 until the day it comes out, making it an even bigger gamble on Nintendo's part.
If Nintendo decides to push SMT, I have the feeling they'd go for Demi-Fiend instead. He's fairly popular and already has a full game released years ago to draw from which recently got a remake released so SMT3 is fresh on people's minds. That feels like a safer bet while still giving SMT that push.