Official DLC Speculation Discussion Volume II

[Shroob]

That is true, but the real question is: why not leave it for last instead? If they had something huge left still, they would've benefited by putting that huge thing early on when the chances of convincing people to buy the pass format and not some individual characters was still high. By this late in the pass, people no longer care about the pass format because they already know what it has, so they would just buy the last character alone if it's what they wanted, which means less profit for Nintendo. This is a business first and most for Nintendo. If XC2 happened when it happened, it pretty much tells me there wasn't anything bigger to put there. We are not gonna end big, just like we didn't with pass 1 nor base game reveals. And it makes sense from Nintendo's perspective of how they did business with Ultimate.

I mean, like the above post mentioned, why have Min Min as the first DLC character?



I don't really look at Min Min and think "Hmm, yes, pass seller." Yeah, Steve and Seph came after her, but.... they didn't start the pass, she did.

 

[3BitSaurus]

So how do you explain Min Min being the very first FP2 character instead of Steve, Sephiroth or even Kazuya

I mean, to be fair, Steve and Kazuya look like they took a lot of dev time, so going first might not have been an option.

As for Sephiroth, do you think he'd make more sense market-wise as a random Direct reveal or at TGA? They knew how to make the biggest splash possible, I'd say.

EDIT: In fact, considering Steve was revealed close to MineCon and Kazuya was our E3 2021 pick, I'd say Sephiroth being set as a TGA reveal was very much intentional, while Min Min and P/M were revealed at normal Directs.

 

[Idon]

Min Min was first because they needed to delay the pass and a several months long ARMS guess who was the best way to stall for time.

 

[Þe 1 → Way]

They’re allowed to start the pass on a hype or a non hype note. The middle of the pass is allowed to be hype or lowkey. Even the slot before the final is allowed to be hype or lowkey.

But don’t you dare even think Nintendo will do anything other than end on a low note for the final!

 

[SKX31]

We were talking about just the models.

I should also add that Pyra's model was obviously altered 'cuz, ya know, nylons, but I wouldn't be surprised if they used the models from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 for the base.

I'm talking about their models.

It's quite obvious where certain moveset inspirations come from.

As far as models go, I'm not even confident to say Rex/Pyra/Mythra are ripped from XC2.

Didn't realize it at first and thought you two meant both the model and moveset / general animations that came with them. My mistake.

As far as models go, I'm going to err on the side of "they probably took the XC2 models as basis and then refitted them to produce the Smash models" not just due to censorship reasons, but also since (from what little XC2 I've seen granted, please correct me if I'm wrong) they fight somewhat differently from XC2.

As for what you said about crossovers, the new animated series they got has me wondering if they'll open up to more content and collaborations. Valve can get... weird and inconsistent with how they do crossovers, but stuff like the Fall Guys costumes make me think there's a foot on the door, at least.

Valve is really hard to read, yes - partly because they're as secretive as Nintendo (see Half Life Alyx). Think the primary driving factor for them will be if they continue to see Steam as their "home platform" kinda like how Nintendo see their consoles. If that continues to be the case I'm going to assume that the answer's no. Or if they loosen up a bit more - it may be possible, especially depending on how they see their Steam Deck vis a vis ordinary consoles.

And yes the Volvo part was intentional. It's a joke stemming from when Valve didn't release Diretide - the game's Halloween event - in 2014. And as a result Dota players started spamming "Volvo give diretide". It got to the point where Volvo actually got in on the joke (because they were being spammed too):

 

[Shroob]

I feel like people severely underplay Kazuya tbh.


Tekken's what, the 2nd biggest traditional fighting game series in the world, only 2nd to Street Fighter, which we got 2 characters of?



Yeah, he's not some "OH MY GOD NO WAY" reveal like Steve or Sephiroth, but Tekken's definitely an A-list 3rd Party franchise, easily.

 

[Nazyrus]

So how do you explain Min Min being the very first FP2 character instead of Steve, Sephiroth or even Kazuya

You aren't understanding what I mean by "early in the pass" , which by that I mean in the first half of its reveals (basically not towards the END of the reveals). I never said they had to be the very first reveal. I only said that maybe Joker counted as a big one too for some people, for those who cared about him, and how he was a worm can opener for DLC in general.

Pass 2, once again, has only had 2 big shockers, Sephiroth and Steve. If XC2 happened when it happened, and not something else huge 3rd party-wise, that means they have nothing bigger to make the PASS format profit more from at that point in the pass. If they wanted to end big pass 1, they would've done it with someone that wasn't Byleth. If they wanted to end big the base game reveals, they would've done it with either ridley or krool, not an echo and a pokemon. It's very simple. Get the CP6 situation out of your mind, it deviates from the point i'm making, about the fact that they have NEVER ended big during Ultimate, because there's clearly a better position for bigger stuff for Nintendo to profit from, which is in the first half-ish of the reveals, never towards the end.

 

[GilTheGreat19]

I mean, to be fair, Steve and Kazuya look like they took a lot of dev time, so going first might not have been an option.

As for Sephiroth, do you think he'd make more sense market-wise as a random Direct reveal or at TGA? They knew how to make the biggest splash possible, I'd say.

Don't forget that over 83 million people watched TGA 2020.

Not only is that the highest view count for any TGA (congrats Geoff)
But that also means 83 million people witnessed the Sephiorth Smash Reveal
Nintendo fans and Non-nintendo gamers alike

 

[Þe 1 → Way]

I feel like people severely underplay Kazuya tbh.


Tekken's what, the 2nd biggest traditional fighting game series in the world, only 2nd to Street Fighter, which we got 2 characters of?

Is this in terms of sales or recognizability? Cause if its sales MK is actually #1, though Tekken is still #2 regardless (not counting Smash Natürlich), so I guess it doesn’t matter and I made this post for nothing.
Huh.

 

[Idon]

I feel like people severely underplay Kazuya tbh.


Tekken's what, the 2nd biggest traditional fighting game series in the world, only 2nd to Street Fighter, which we got 2 characters of?



Yeah, he's not some "OH MY GOD NO WAY" reveal like Steve or Sephiroth, but Tekken's definitely an A-list 3rd Party franchise, easily.

Well, I think most people know Tekken as the premier 3D fighting game. There really is no competition when it comes to just sheer popularity in this modern era.

I think the difference is that the fighting game genre is much more difficult to get a good grasp on to the average "gamer." Everyone knows who Sephiroth and Steve are and their games aren't particularly difficult to get into. Meanwhile Tekken is something that is just unapproachable to the average person. At best you'd know about Tekken without ever experiencing it firsthand.

It'd be like if we got a Starcraft 2 character. Yeah everyone knows what Starcraft 2 is and everyone knows about its gaming significance, its giant scene, its legacy, etc etc... but the community that interacts with Smash doesn't overlap enough with that game to make it seen as "a big player"

 

[GilTheGreat19]

Tekken's what, the 2nd biggest traditional fighting game series in the world, only 2nd to Street Fighter, which we got 2 characters of?

It's kinda neck and neck between Tekken and Mortal Kombat but yea
Though Tekken's more of a 3D than, say, traditional fighter I guess

 

[Shroob]

Well, I think most people know Tekken as the premier 3D fighting game. There really is no competition when it comes to just sheer popularity in this modern era.

I think the difference is that the fighting game genre is much more difficult to get a good grasp on to the average "gamer." Everyone knows who Sephiroth and Steve are and their games aren't particularly difficult to get into. Meanwhile Tekken is something that is just unapproachable to the average person. At best you'd know about Tekken without ever experiencing it firsthand.

It'd be like if we got a Starcraft 2 character. Yeah everyone knows what Starcraft 2 is and everyone knows about its gaming significance, its giant scene, its legacy, etc etc... but the community that interacts with Smash doesn't overlap enough with that game to make it seen as "a big player"

But at the same time, I think people are severely downplaying Tekken as a series, as seen above where only Steve and Seph are brought up as being 'big' reveals.


Tekken's big, and Kazuya in Smash, while maybe not a huge hype generator akin to Seph, is big.



It's impossible to say that Tekken's this small, b-list 3rd party IP that'd be a whimper to end on, it's huge.

 

[Nazyrus]

I feel like people severely underplay Kazuya tbh.


Tekken's what, the 2nd biggest traditional fighting game series in the world, only 2nd to Street Fighter, which we got 2 characters of?



Yeah, he's not some "OH MY GOD NO WAY" reveal like Steve or Sephiroth, but Tekken's definitely an A-list 3rd Party franchise, easily.

Tekken is the 2nd biggest fighting game that isn't a smash game. That is correct. But you know where most of its sales comes from? Outside of Japan, which Harada himself has admitted and confirmed. Tekken isn't necessarily THE BIGGEST in Japan, but everywhere else more like. I don't underplay him, but I rather don't consider him to be a worldwide hype reveal as Steve or Sephiroth were, who are from games that are both big everywhere else AND Japan. This is just a matter of perspective I guess, but by no means I consider him to be a tiny inclusion, I just didn't consider him to be one of the BIGGEST shockers. Tekken getting in wasn't the "wow I never thought they would do this" when you know Sakurai is a huge fan of fighting games in general, meanwhile Steve and Sephiroth no one was literally expecting to happen, either because Banjo was already in and people doubted another microsoft rep for whatever dumb reason fans had, or because they never thought we would get more FF content at all, calling Square Enix stingy and what not. That's all I meant by not considering Kazuya as a bigger hype reveal than those 2, but I don't mean to underplay him THAT much either lol. He was still decently hype, more than Arms that's for sure, haha.

 

[Garteam]

I feel like people severely underplay Kazuya tbh.


Tekken's what, the 2nd biggest traditional fighting game series in the world, only 2nd to Street Fighter, which we got 2 characters of?



Yeah, he's not some "OH MY GOD NO WAY" reveal like Steve or Sephiroth, but Tekken's definitely an A-list 3rd Party franchise, easily.

It's kind of weird that FP2 is the first wave of Smash characters to add more than two unique third parties from franchises with over 20 million sales and FP1 is the first wave of Smash characters to add less than two unique third parties from franchises with over 20 million sales, yet FP1 is characterized as the point where Smash went all-in on big-name guests.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

I don't underplay him, but I rather don't consider him to be a worldwide hype reveal as Steve or Sephiroth were, who are from games that are both big everywhere else AND Japan.

Kazuya was their E3 reveal.

The event where you said they brought out the big guns for Ridley, Hero and Banjo. They are on equal footing.

I feel like people underplay Tekken just because its not for them, and I don't mean just you, I see it everywhere.

 

[Nazyrus]

Kazuya was their E3 reveal.

The event where you said they brought out the big guns or Ridley, Hero and Banjo. They are on equal footing.

I feel like people underplay Tekken just because its not for them, and I don't mean just you, I see it everywhere.

I literally explained that I don't underplay him and that I just didn't consider him as HUGE shocker as Sephy and Steve. I don't know why this is so hard to understand even after having been explained. I don't think he is small like incineroar or Byleth by any means. Chill everyone, lol. Other people might underplay him entirely, but don't include me with them.

 

[Dan Quixote]

I think the distinction that's gotta be made here is that Kazuya was HUGE but not SHOCKING. I know it sounds like kind of a silly distinction, and it really only applies to the little subsection of Nintendo fans on the Internet, but it explains why Kazuya didn't crash the web like the likes of Banjo & Kazooie did. By pure numbers, Kazuya is one of the biggest inclusions in the entire Smash franchise. If we went by pure numbers, we could cut the cast down to 12 again and he'd still be in it. However, Tekken is made by the same developer as Smash, is a fighting game like Smash, comes from Bandai Namco which is already represented by a fighter in Smash, and he's not even our first adult-rated character. There wasn't this big legend built around him like Banjo & Kazooie nor were there a lot of obvious insurmountable walls for him to conquer, so it was a little less shocking that he finally made it in. That all said, it probably means there's a silent majority of people who were very happy with Kazuya's appearance here, they just didn't scream about it on social media.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

I just didn't consider him as HUGE shocker as Sephy and Steve.

You might not.

But its evident that Nintendo does, which goes against your theory.

 

[Shroob]

CP11 can't come soon enough tbh.



I grow soo weary of these:


"CP11 will be small!"

"It doesn't have to be small!"


Debates.



They're utterly pointless since we have no bloody clue who CP11 is, and they never go anywhere. If there was actual headway into discussion, it'd be one thing, but it's just one side going "LOOK AT HOW IT'S ALWAYS BEEN!", and the other going "But it doesn't have to be!"



Soo tiring.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

CP11 can't come soon enough tbh.



I grow soo weary of these:


"CP11 will be small!"

"It doesn't have to be small!"


Debates.



They're utterly pointless since we have no bloody clue who CP11 is, and they never go anywhere. If there was actual headway into discussion, it'd be one thing, but it's just one side going "LOOK AT HOW IT'S ALWAYS BEEN!", and the other going "But it doesn't have to be!"



Soo tiring.

Hopefully in two weeks.

 

[FreeFox]

CP11 can't come soon enough tbh.



I grow soo weary of these:


"CP11 will be small!"

"It doesn't have to be small!"


Debates.



They're utterly pointless since we have no bloody clue who CP11 is, and they never go anywhere. If there was actual headway into discussion, it'd be one thing, but it's just one side going "LOOK AT HOW IT'S ALWAYS BEEN!", and the other going "But it doesn't have to be!"



Soo tiring.

Too true. Not to mention that the ridiculous metrics of how big or small a character is, its all over the place. It could be the biggest franchise of its genre and people might consider it small if its sales arent big. Or it could be one of the most iconic characters of videogames and people might believe its not big because they never played their game. Or it could be selling in huge numbers and just because they havent heard from it, its not hype. Its quite dreadful (and usually really biased)

 

[GilTheGreat19]

CP11 can't come soon enough tbh.



I grow soo weary of these:


"CP11 will be small!"

"It doesn't have to be small!"


Debates.



They're utterly pointless since we have no bloody clue who CP11 is, and they never go anywhere. If there was actual headway into discussion, it'd be one thing, but it's just one side going "LOOK AT HOW IT'S ALWAYS BEEN!", and the other going "But it doesn't have to be!"



Soo tiring.

I also wanna know who it is ASAP so I can focus even more on my IRL situations, too.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

Soo tiring.

Would it revitalize you if I told you that I know the truth? Don't tell anyone I said this, but...

The next fighter will be small. Only about 8'' tall.

 

[NessAtc.]

We were talking about just the models.

I should also add that Pyra's model was obviously altered 'cuz, ya know, nylons, but I wouldn't be surprised if they used the models from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 for the base.

They almost certainly do use the same models. Within days of their release, alternate costumes from xeno 2 were already getting ported into smash practically seamlessly.

I mean, like the above post mentioned, why have Min Min as the first DLC character?



I don't really look at Min Min and think "Hmm, yes, pass seller." Yeah, Steve and Seph came after her, but.... they didn't start the pass, she did.

For the same reason Joker started the pass rather than Hero. They literally couldn't start with any other character, plus the ARMS plan was a lot further along; the lack of music in base game is a dead giveaway that they were thinking about an ARMS character that far in advance.

 

[Momotsuki]

I feel like people severely underplay Kazuya tbh.


Tekken's what, the 2nd biggest traditional fighting game series in the world, only 2nd to Street Fighter, which we got 2 characters of?



Yeah, he's not some "OH MY GOD NO WAY" reveal like Steve or Sephiroth, but Tekken's definitely an A-list 3rd Party franchise, easily.

For me, Kazuya was the peak of this pass thus far - though Steve is also bangin'.
My dude gets hella slept on, it's like people had the day one funnies and then he fell off the earth, haha.

 

[kylexv]

Pic of the Day:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Spoiler

EDIT:
The REAL Pic of the Day:

pic.twitter.com/e85YTPWe6l

— 桜井 政博 / Masahiro Sakurai (@Sora_Sakurai) August 26, 2021

 

[Shroob]

Pic of the Day:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Spoiler

View attachment 327784

.....weird, that's a rerun.


Wonder if it was an accident.

 

[7NATOR]

I would say Japan is Tekken's most Niche region nowadays, but Tekken 7 still sold like 150,000 Copies there, which is okay, and back in the day, Tekken 1 and 2 were in the Millions (Unsure on the later games, but I'm sure Tekken 3 was also very high in Japan)

Anyways yeah Kazuya does get underplayed. I think the reason he probably gets underplayed is that perhaps of all the characters in FP2, he's the least associated with Nintendo. Tekken is not a franchise that's on Nintendo systems often. That's probably the major reason he was the E3 Reveal, a Event which has gamers from all Regions of gaming watching instead of Nintendo heads and such. Kazuya is gonna appeal to Playstation Players, and perhaps also PC and Xbox Players also, more than he is Nintendo fans

Steve and Sephiroth in Comparison I think have more overall crossover with the people that have been paying attention to Smash already, Especially Sephiroth since Cloud is already in the game. Also their Franchises are bigger than Tekken also, though I will acknowledge that remember FF7 is only one game in many Final Fantasy games, which have their own characters and lore, and their games are more readily available on the Nintendo Switch as of now

------------------------------------------------------------------------

I had a Giant Essay as to why I think CP11 has more evidence in it being more Hype than not Hype, but I figured people didn't want to read it, So I'll just give my Opinions

I think if they aren't going to go for a character that is from a Game people are/will be playing now (and the only characters this would apply for is Pokemon, not even Gen 8, and Nahobino, who I think has alot of Circumstances going against him) Then it's likely the character is going to be one that Main appeal is to the Audience already invested into Smash, or just Nintendo

This character I don't think is Gonna be a Steve or Kazuya and have new appeal to New audiences, and if it does, it's gonna be an audience already on Nintendo. I think this Final Character could be closer to Sephiroth in this regard

I don't think this character is gonna be Niche. FP2 could have just been the 5 characters we already got revealed, and I think Nintendo would have just been fine with that. Adding a 6th character to FP2 means more Costs in Development, over longer period of time, and also the fact that less people are invested in the product as time goes on.

So the fact they had 6 Characters tells me that Nintendo and/or Sakurai had Large confidence in this character being worth the Development time and such. While they do want to sell the Pass, they also want the characters to sell individually, Especially since characters in Smash Fighter Passes tend to appeal to Different audiences from each other

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

Pic of the Day:

Deja vu!
I've just been in this place before
Higher on the street
And I know it's my time to goooo
Calling you
And the search is a mystery
Standing on my feet
It's so hard when I try to be me
UOOOOOOOH!!!

 

[GilTheGreat19]

What's a bigger mystery
CP11
The 8 remaining Nick All Stars characters
The next Super monkey ball guest star

or MrJudd's prediction for CP11

 

[FreeFox]

What's a bigger mystery
CP11
The 8 remaining Nick All Stars characters
The next Super monkey ball guest star

or MrJudd's prediction for CP11

Dont forget the August direct 8. 8. 2018

 

[PSIGuy]

Part of me feels like FGC characters already cross over so much that seeing them in something else isn't really that much of a big deal (M. Bison another Tuesday blah blah already made this joke like 10 pages ago). But then I remember Joker "in literally every phone game in existence" Persona 5 and Sephiroth are also in and got huge responses, so maybe that's not the case. At the very least, something like Banjo coming back from the dead and Heroes being allowed to fight other Heroes seem like big things that don't normally happen which were worth getting excited for.

 

[GilTheGreat19]

Dont forget the August direct 8. 8. 2018

The biggest fish in the tank

 

[N3ON]

.....weird, that's a rerun.


Wonder if it was an accident.

Can you imagine if he had posted a pic of the unrevealed character by accident instead?

Ultimate's ultimate leaker: Sakurai himself.

 

[Shroob]

Can you imagine if he had posted a pic of the unrevealed character by accident instead?

Ultimate's ultimate leaker: Sakurai himself.

Also relevant

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

Also relevant

Wait a minute. Why do they have cars if they can just run that fast anyway?

 

[Michael the Spikester]

I feel like people severely underplay Kazuya tbh.


Tekken's what, the 2nd biggest traditional fighting game series in the world, only 2nd to Street Fighter, which we got 2 characters of?



Yeah, he's not some "OH MY GOD NO WAY" reveal like Steve or Sephiroth, but Tekken's definitely an A-list 3rd Party franchise, easily.

Probably because folks were expecting someone like Crash or Sora back in June/E3.

 

[NessAtc.]

I would say Japan is Tekken's most Niche region nowadays, but Tekken 7 still sold like 150,000 Copies there, which is okay, and back in the day, Tekken 1 and 2 were in the Millions (Unsure on the later games, but I'm sure Tekken 3 was also very high in Japan)

Anyways yeah Kazuya does get underplayed. I think the reason he probably gets underplayed is that perhaps of all the characters in FP2, he's the least associated with Nintendo. Tekken is not a franchise that's on Nintendo systems often. That's probably the major reason he was the E3 Reveal, a Event which has gamers from all Regions of gaming watching instead of Nintendo heads and such. Kazuya is gonna appeal to Playstation Players, and perhaps also PC and Xbox Players also, more than he is Nintendo fans

Steve and Sephiroth in Comparison I think have more overall crossover with the people that have been paying attention to Smash already, Especially Sephiroth since Cloud is already in the game. Also their Franchises are bigger than Tekken also, though I will acknowledge that remember FF7 is only one game in many Final Fantasy games, which have their own characters and lore, and their games are more readily available on the Nintendo Switch as of now

------------------------------------------------------------------------

I had a Giant Essay as to why I think CP11 has more evidence in it being more Hype than not Hype, but I figured people didn't want to read it, So I'll just give my Opinions

I think if they aren't going to go for a character that is from a Game people are/will be playing now (and the only characters this would apply for is Pokemon, not even Gen 8, and Nahobino, who I think has alot of Circumstances going against him) Then it's likely the character is going to be one that Main appeal is to the Audience already invested into Smash, or just Nintendo

This character I don't think is Gonna be a Steve or Kazuya and have new appeal to New audiences, and if it does, it's gonna be an audience already on Nintendo. I think this Final Character could be closer to Sephiroth in this regard

I don't think this character is gonna be Niche. FP2 could have just been the 5 characters we already got revealed, and I think Nintendo would have just been fine with that. Adding a 6th character to FP2 means more Costs in Development, over longer period of time, and also the fact that less people are invested in the product as time goes on.

So the fact they had 6 Characters tells me that Nintendo and/or Sakurai had Large confidence in this character being worth the Development time and such. While they do want to sell the Pass, they also want the characters to sell individually, Especially since characters in Smash Fighter Passes tend to appeal to Different audiences from each other

Bold of you to assume that FP11 is the additional sixth character, and isn't actually one of the five we've had already.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Bold of you to assume that FP11 is the additional sixth character, and isn't actually one of the five we've had already.

Min Min 2: The Min Min Minnining

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

Bold of you to assume that FP11 is the additional sixth character, and isn't actually one of the five we've had already.

It's just an update for Min Min: You can now select which ARMS she takes into battle.