Official DLC Speculation Discussion Volume II

[Cutie Gwen]

I find that kind of surprising. I would have thought that they'd be relieved by all the fake leaks thrown around, since it makes it hard to tell what's real and what's not.

At the same time it makes people aware of the character and wonder if it's true, which would lessen the impact of the surprise as if's on their minds

 

[BritishGuy54]

Same thing everybody says every single time. I expect basically the entire roster or the vast majority of it to come back for Smash 6 actually.

I’m personally expecting a Smash Ultimate Deluxe.

 

[Nekoo]

Funny enough, they do have a legal team tracking down leaks on 4chan.
I wish I was kidding but I'm not

 

[Mamboo07]

Funny enough, they do have a legal team tracking down leaks on 4chan.
I wish I was kidding but I'm not

wait what?

 

[BlondeLombax]

Funny enough, they do have a legal team tracking down leaks on 4chan.
I wish I was kidding but I'm not

Not gonna lie, that’s actually equal parts hilarious, badass, and mildly shady on Nintendo’s part.
“They” does refer to Nintendo, right? And how do they filter the real ones from the fakes?

 

[Nekoo]

wait what?

Not gonna lie, that’s actually equal parts hilarious, badass, and mildly shady on Nintendo’s part.
“They” does refer to Nintendo, right? And how do they filter the real ones from the fakes?

From what I understand from someone who worked with NOA, they have a division that scout any fake or real leaks.
If they track a real leak and start to see who had access to the information and tries to go back to the source...
And they have a laugh with really dumb fake leaks.

That division was basically focused on vp which is the Pokemon board of 4chan where Nintendo Server leaks, pokemon leaks, beta and such popped the most and apparently whenever it's E3 or around an important event/direct they're back to full monitoring.

 

[Eldrake]

Funny enough, they do have a legal team tracking down leaks on 4chan.
I wish I was kidding but I'm not

Pictured: Staff member of the legal team slowly accepting his fate as he scrolls through every single 4chan thread and screencaps every single typewriter monkey post to send to the higher-ups on the off-chance that one of these might actually be legit.

 

[Arcane Jill]

But peoples' priority shouldn't be brainstorming reasons how it can still be real. It doesn't matter if you want the outcome or not, the goal shouldn't be to try to keep leaks alive as long as possible with increasingly outlandish theories.

The goal should just be to assess whether the leak makes sense and come up with an informed, unbiased conclusion without making up excuses and progressively unwinding more yarn to account for the growing implausibility.

If a leak stops making sense, it's time to drop it. It's not time to do mental gymnastics or invest in minute possibilities to keep it aloft, because most leaks are fake, and the faster we can fairly discard it, the less time we spend tripping over obstacles people plant for us.

Giving a leak undue credence and unnecessarily prolonged attention is exactly what the people who devise them want. When the reasonable explanations are gone, it's time to move on.

This. While I would love to have her in Smash, I am 99% sure that particular leak is fake. The music selection was really sus, and it had no evidence behind it besides [Source: dude trust me]. Think it's time to put that leak aside.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

Pictured: Staff member of the legal team slowly accepting his fate as he scrolls through every single 4chan thread and screencaps every single typewriter monkey post to send to the higher-ups on the off-chance that one of these might actually be legit.

POV: You are the original Cacomallow 4chan post viewed by Nintendo employees

 

[Nekoo]

Pictured: Staff member of the legal team slowly accepting his fate as he scrolls through every single 4chan thread and screencaps every single typewriter monkey post to send to the higher-ups on the off-chance that one of these might actually be legit.

POV: You are the original Cacomallow 4chan post viewed by Nintendo employees
View attachment 299681

You know, once upon a time I would be laughing my ass off thinking about "Nintendo Ninja" until that recent server leak showing that they do exist and they have full blown internal investigator and detective looking out for Hackers and Homebrews scene progress

 

[Eldrake]

Now that I mentioned the off-chance of actual legit leaks, this reminds me of the Piranha Plant leak that got no replies whatsoever. Imagine being the ninja scouring through 4chan, seeing the Piranha Plant post, thinking "Seriously? Piranha Plant? These monkeys are running out of ideas. Oh well, time to do my job." and then passing the post over to your superiors.
The next thing you know, you and the rest of your colleagues are informed that there's a leak in the wild.

 

[SKX31]

You know, once upon a time I would be laughing my ass off thinking about "Nintendo Ninja" until that recent server leak showing that they do exist and they have full blown internal investigator and detective looking out for Hackers and Homebrews scene progress

Now that I mentioned the off-chance of actual legit leaks, this reminds me of the Piranha Plant leak that got no replies whatsoever. Imagine being the ninja scouring through 4chan, seeing the Piranha Plant post, thinking "Seriously? Piranha Plant? These monkeys are running out of ideas. Oh well, time to do my job." and then passing the post over to your superiors.
The next thing you know, you and the rest of your colleagues are informed that there's a leak in the wild.

Given that they might need a cup of coffee every now and then, chances are that the Ninjas are - at this point - so high on caffeine they've started to see, well, things:

(And for anyone not familiar with Dota 2, Eldrake gave a good summary of the character pictured - Meepo - here.)

At the same time it makes people aware of the character and wonder if it's true, which would lessen the impact of the surprise as if's on their minds

It's also worth noting that Nintendo's PR and the social media teams would not want to deal with leaks - real of fake - either; and this extends to the Bandai-Namco team (see Harada's comment).

 

[YoshiandToad]

Honestly, I think it'd be cooler to see Mario Kart try and add way more Wario characters and Donkey kong characters before branching off into different Nintendo properties.

Give us the WarioWare cast
Give us Captain Syrup and maybe some other Warioland characters
Give us Funky back and also add Dixie, Cranky, and K. Rool to join DK and Diddy

Then beyond that, go ahead and bring back the Inklings, Animal Crossing characters, and Link. bring back R.O.B who has been absent in MK since MKDS. Maybe just add only 1 new Nintendo IP, and have it be Kirby, since his cartoony and simple look would work greatly in Mario kart, not to mention Kirby's already used to racing with his warp Star in Kirby Air Ride.

Sounds pretty damn good to me.

This.

People keep saying Mario doesn't have anywhere to go for options for Mario Kart, but the real issue is the team tend to add easily made filler drivers to the roster like Baby Rosalina, Tanooki Mario and Pink Gold Peach and just make locales up constantly.

There's still plenty to tap from other Mario-verse franchises and it seems weird they're not doing it:

• DKC only just got Dixie in Tour, Diddy, Funky and Rambi as a kart are the only real DKC specifics. K. Rool, Cranky, the 64 Kong Clan, other animal buddies as karts or some locales from DKC in general would be great additions.
• Wario's series are both gold mines that are completely untapped. No WarioWare outfit for Wario on a bike even. Nothing. WarioWare has a colourful cast with a fair few having their own vehicles they could bring to the race(Ashley's broom, Mona's moped, Dribble and Spitz' taxi, Orbulon's UFO) and you have the likes of Captain Syrup fitting very well with the various airship tracks and karts.
• Yoshi: Despite Kamek being both Yoshi's arch nemesis, Bowser's right hand man AND planned for both Mario Kart 64 and Mario Kart 8, he still hasn't made it. Not even in Tour. What the hell? Beyond him you have the other babies from Yoshi's Island DS(Baby DK and Baby Wario) and Poochy. Track wise, the crafted and wooly aesthetics could make for some really interesting set pieces.
• Paper Mario is utterly untapped. The amount of track potential in this is insane. We got nothing.
• Mario + Luigi is again untapped. Has it's own unique cast members like Fawful and memorable locales. I'd love a track where you drive around the insides of a giant Bowser. That'd be really creative.
• Luigi's Mansion doesn't get the shortest end of the stick as it tends to get a track, King Boo and the Poltergust as a kart, but E. Gadd was planned for Mario Kart DS and removed. Now if you want a filler character we got Gooigi who is canon and well liked, we have Hellen Graveley and Polterpup and almost every level of the hotel from Luigi's Mansion 3 would be a unique track idea.
• Captain Toad (and Explorer Toadette) just made it into Mario Kart Tour, but his tiny box worlds would make for a great Baby Park style track.
• 3D Mario cast members who have basically disappeared from the extended world; Toadsworth, Plessie, Sprixie Princess, Cappy, Petey, maybe even the Broodals etc
• Other species who constantly miss out: Boom Boom, Pom Pom, Piranha Plant, Chain Chomp, Spike and Goomba have all shown they're capable of Smashing, tennis and partying, so why not bring them in too?
• Retro Mario is also basically untapped. We have one kart referencing Wrecking Crew and not much else. There's heaps of oldschool characters who could be revived: Stanley the Bugman, Foreman Spike, Wanda, etc just like Pauline...speaking of whom;
• Pauline, Nabbit and King Bob-Omb also only just made their debuts in Mario Kart Tour which is kind of crazy. DK JR only just returned in Tour as well. Get them in the next game(and keep Diddy in it please).

Don't get me wrong, I really liked the Excitebike and F-Zero levels and I'd be fine with a few more thematically appropriate guest racers(like Fox, Samus, Falcon who all at least have their own vehicles) but the name of Mario Kart is too big a brand name to throw away and at it's core it should remain MARIO Kart IMO.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

Given that we're likely in the cycle of week to week news, I'm curious as what might get in the next couple of days as far as reveals/announcements. A Partner Showcase feels like its coming soon, with either next week or possibly early February being decent times to do one. Pokémon presentations are their own thing so that's basically at the whim of TPC/Game Freak deciding when's the ideal time to kick of the 25th anniversary.

I'll guess something relatively low key this week, either DLC for something or mid tier game announcement of some sort.

 

[LAA9000]

Given that we're likely in the cycle of week to week news, I'm curious as what might get in the next couple of days as far as reveals/announcements. A Partner Showcase feels like its coming soon, with either next week or possibly early February being decent times to do one. Pokémon presentations are their own thing so that's basically at the whim of TPC/Game Freak deciding when's the ideal time to kick of the 25th anniversary.

I'll guess something relatively low key this week, either DLC for something or mid tier game announcement of some sort.

I'm personally still waiting for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity to have DLC announced. It'll probably be another shadowdrop given that I highly doubt we're getting a Direct Mini this month.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

I'm personally still waiting for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity to have DLC announced. It'll probably be another shadowdrop given that I highly doubt we're getting a Direct Mini this month.

Even Direct Minis are likely done for a while. Its shadow drops, franchise specific directs, indie presentations, or Partner Showcases going forward.

 

[3BitSaurus]

Given that they might need a cup of coffee every now and then, chances are that the Ninjas are - at this point - so high on caffeine they've started to see, well, things:

(And for anyone not familiar with Dota 2, Eldrake gave a good summary of the character pictured - Meepo - here.)

Wait, so does that mean... the Nintendo Ninjas are actually a hivemind being controlled by a single person? And if we get rid of one, we get rid of them all?

 

[Otoad64]

This.

People keep saying Mario doesn't have anywhere to go for options for Mario Kart, but the real issue is the team tend to add easily made filler drivers to the roster like Baby Rosalina, Tanooki Mario and Pink Gold Peach and just make locales up constantly.

There's still plenty to tap from other Mario-verse franchises and it seems weird they're not doing it:

• DKC only just got Dixie in Tour, Diddy, Funky and Rambi as a kart are the only real DKC specifics. K. Rool, Cranky, the 64 Kong Clan, other animal buddies as karts or some locales from DKC in general would be great additions.
• Wario's series are both gold mines that are completely untapped. No WarioWare outfit for Wario on a bike even. Nothing. WarioWare has a colourful cast with a fair few having their own vehicles they could bring to the race(Ashley's broom, Mona's moped, Dribble and Spitz' taxi, Orbulon's UFO) and you have the likes of Captain Syrup fitting very well with the various airship tracks and karts.
• Yoshi: Despite Kamek being both Yoshi's arch nemesis, Bowser's right hand man AND planned for both Mario Kart 64 and Mario Kart 8, he still hasn't made it. Not even in Tour. What the hell? Beyond him you have the other babies from Yoshi's Island DS(Baby DK and Baby Wario) and Poochy. Track wise, the crafted and wooly aesthetics could make for some really interesting set pieces.
• Paper Mario is utterly untapped. The amount of track potential in this is insane. We got nothing.
• Mario + Luigi is again untapped. Has it's own unique cast members like Fawful and memorable locales. I'd love a track where you drive around the insides of a giant Bowser. That'd be really creative.
• Luigi's Mansion doesn't get the shortest end of the stick as it tends to get a track, King Boo and the Poltergust as a kart, but E. Gadd was planned for Mario Kart DS and removed. Now if you want a filler character we got Gooigi who is canon and well liked, we have Hellen Graveley and Polterpup and almost every level of the hotel from Luigi's Mansion 3 would be a unique track idea.
• Captain Toad (and Explorer Toadette) just made it into Mario Kart Tour, but his tiny box worlds would make for a great Baby Park style track.
• 3D Mario cast members who have basically disappeared from the extended world; Toadsworth, Plessie, Sprixie Princess, Cappy, Petey, maybe even the Broodals etc
• Other species who constantly miss out: Boom Boom, Pom Pom, Piranha Plant, Chain Chomp, Spike and Goomba have all shown they're capable of Smashing, tennis and partying, so why not bring them in too?
• Retro Mario is also basically untapped. We have one kart referencing Wrecking Crew and not much else. There's heaps of oldschool characters who could be revived: Stanley the Bugman, Foreman Spike, Wanda, etc just like Pauline...speaking of whom;
• Pauline, Nabbit and King Bob-Omb also only just made their debuts in Mario Kart Tour which is kind of crazy. DK JR only just returned in Tour as well. Get them in the next game(and keep Diddy in it please).

Don't get me wrong, I really liked the Excitebike and F-Zero levels and I'd be fine with a few more thematically appropriate guest racers(like Fox, Samus, Falcon who all at least have their own vehicles) but the name of Mario Kart is too big a brand name to throw away and at it's core it should remain MARIO Kart IMO.

yeah I would love some of these characters in mario kart, personally if I made Mario Kart 9 this would be the roster:

unfortunately this would never happen because nintendo's probably too busy adding green bronze luigi

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

Funny how whenever I look at Nightmare movesets for Smash, stances are rarely a part of those movesets despite stances being a huge thing in Soulcalibur. Only pizzadudemanguy got it from what I've seen.

Even in his simplest and smallest movesets, Nightmare had at least one stance.

 

[Eldrake]

Wait, so does that mean... the Nintendo Ninjas are actually a hivemind being controlled by a single person? And if we get rid of one, we get rid of them all?

It's all fun and games until they throw a net on you and start wailing on you with Nintendium-grade shovels.

 

[Arcane Jill]

This.

People keep saying Mario doesn't have anywhere to go for options for Mario Kart, but the real issue is the team tend to add easily made filler drivers to the roster like Baby Rosalina, Tanooki Mario and Pink Gold Peach and just make locales up constantly.

There's still plenty to tap from other Mario-verse franchises and it seems weird they're not doing it:

• DKC only just got Dixie in Tour, Diddy, Funky and Rambi as a kart are the only real DKC specifics. K. Rool, Cranky, the 64 Kong Clan, other animal buddies as karts or some locales from DKC in general would be great additions.
• Wario's series are both gold mines that are completely untapped. No WarioWare outfit for Wario on a bike even. Nothing. WarioWare has a colourful cast with a fair few having their own vehicles they could bring to the race(Ashley's broom, Mona's moped, Dribble and Spitz' taxi, Orbulon's UFO) and you have the likes of Captain Syrup fitting very well with the various airship tracks and karts.
• Yoshi: Despite Kamek being both Yoshi's arch nemesis, Bowser's right hand man AND planned for both Mario Kart 64 and Mario Kart 8, he still hasn't made it. Not even in Tour. What the hell? Beyond him you have the other babies from Yoshi's Island DS(Baby DK and Baby Wario) and Poochy. Track wise, the crafted and wooly aesthetics could make for some really interesting set pieces.
• Paper Mario is utterly untapped. The amount of track potential in this is insane. We got nothing.
• Mario + Luigi is again untapped. Has it's own unique cast members like Fawful and memorable locales. I'd love a track where you drive around the insides of a giant Bowser. That'd be really creative.
• Luigi's Mansion doesn't get the shortest end of the stick as it tends to get a track, King Boo and the Poltergust as a kart, but E. Gadd was planned for Mario Kart DS and removed. Now if you want a filler character we got Gooigi who is canon and well liked, we have Hellen Graveley and Polterpup and almost every level of the hotel from Luigi's Mansion 3 would be a unique track idea.
• Captain Toad (and Explorer Toadette) just made it into Mario Kart Tour, but his tiny box worlds would make for a great Baby Park style track.
• 3D Mario cast members who have basically disappeared from the extended world; Toadsworth, Plessie, Sprixie Princess, Cappy, Petey, maybe even the Broodals etc
• Other species who constantly miss out: Boom Boom, Pom Pom, Piranha Plant, Chain Chomp, Spike and Goomba have all shown they're capable of Smashing, tennis and partying, so why not bring them in too?
• Retro Mario is also basically untapped. We have one kart referencing Wrecking Crew and not much else. There's heaps of oldschool characters who could be revived: Stanley the Bugman, Foreman Spike, Wanda, etc just like Pauline...speaking of whom;
• Pauline, Nabbit and King Bob-Omb also only just made their debuts in Mario Kart Tour which is kind of crazy. DK JR only just returned in Tour as well. Get them in the next game(and keep Diddy in it please).

Don't get me wrong, I really liked the Excitebike and F-Zero levels and I'd be fine with a few more thematically appropriate guest racers(like Fox, Samus, Falcon who all at least have their own vehicles) but the name of Mario Kart is too big a brand name to throw away and at it's core it should remain MARIO Kart IMO.

I agree. I would much rather have Mario Kart add more from it's own universe rather than make it Nintendo Kart. MK has so much untapped potential and they waste it by adding baby/metal versions of characters instead.

 

[Rie Sonomura]

I agree. I would much rather have Mario Kart add more from it's own universe rather than make it Nintendo Kart. MK has so much untapped potential and they waste it by adding baby/metal versions of characters instead.

They were on the right track when they added Isabelle, Villager, Link and the Inklings.

I’m still waiting for Octolings like this utterly adorable mod here:

such babies uwu

they’re the REAL babies, not the baby characters

 

[The Stoopid Unikorn]

Non-Mario characters in Mario Kart are fine, imo. Even more so if they're additional DLC like they were in vanilla MK8.

But the moment that they start being the selling point of a main game, then it just stops being Mario Kart.

8 Deluxe would've fallen under that situation if the main attraction wasn't the fact that we got an actual battle mode.

 

[SKX31]

Wait, so does that mean... the Nintendo Ninjas are actually a hivemind being controlled by a single person? And if we get rid of one, we get rid of them all?

It's all fun and games until they throw a net on you and start wailing on you with Nintendium-grade shovels.

Should we mention that the copies can throw their own nets and thus keep you bound practically forever (there's up to five of 'em, the nets last for 2 secs each and have 8 - can be reduced to 5 - secs CD) assuming they're high enough level, micromanage like a StarCraft pro and don't run out of mana?

Hope you brought AoE stuns with you. You'll need that.

I agree. I would much rather have Mario Kart add more from it's own universe rather than make it Nintendo Kart. MK has so much untapped potential and they waste it by adding baby/metal versions of characters instead.

The whole thing feels extremely weird. The main reason I can see Nintendo going for the metal / baby / whatever variants is because they're even easier to make than Echoes...

...But it emphasizes the untapped potential aspect. Which is extremely weird when Nintendo could use Mario Kart / other Mario multiplayer spin offs to help fuel other Mario subseries - but seem content not to do so for whatever reason.

 

[3BitSaurus]

Should we mention that the copies can throw their own nets and thus keep you bound practically forever (there's up to five of 'em, the nets last for 2 secs each and have 8 - can be reduced to 5 - secs CD) assuming they're high enough level, micromanage like a StarCraft pro and don't run out of mana?

Hope you brought AoE stuns with you. You'll need that.

Real talk - after all of these exchanges, I'll be a bit miffed if we got our first MOBA rep (whether from Dota, LoL or others) and they didn't have obnoxious stuns. And stun-to-death combos, of course.

 

[Eldrake]

Real talk - after all of these exchanges, I'll be a bit miffed if we got our first MOBA rep (whether from Dota, LoL or others) and they didn't have obnoxious stuns. And stun-to-death combos, of course.

I feel like if Invoker somehow joined Smash, his playstyle would probably include finding the right opportunity to unleash an EMP+Tornado+Deafening Blast+Chaos Meteor+Cold Snap+Ice Wall+Sunstrike death combo, and there would be memes that Invoker players don't even know that normal attacks exists.

 

[Deleted member]

Yo so no clue how much people are still paying attention to the supposed voice theory and/or placeholder slots, but they don't seem to mean much of anything. I started poking around in the WoL param files to see if it was possible to add fights for the DLC characters, and in the process, I've discovered a few things about placeholder data.

• Voice Theory has absolutely no legs to stand on outside of a perfect square which is ultimately meaningless. The parameter file for the sound test (ui_voice_db.prc) has no placeholder entries in it. The entries for DLC characters are simply added to the end of the album list. The final two entries in the list are Sephiroth and Advent Cloud.
  
  
• Within the World of Light movement params (used for map movement), there exist 10 unoccupied entries. These entries start from dummy_07 and go to dummy_16. There are a few irregularities with the dummy slots. The first dummy string is dummy_02, and counting backwards from dummy_07 puts dummy_02 at Terry, leaving four slots (Plant, Joker, Hero, and Banjo) unaccounted for. The Cutting Room Floor has a bit more information that helps explain this discrepancy. I unfortunately only have the current patch to work from:
  
  A whopping 30 placeholder character slots existed in the files of the character selection screen at launch before being removed in the v2.0.0 update. There are also a slightly smaller 16 placeholder character slots in the files for the World of Light and in the attack_log_parameter.prc file, Piranha Plant and Joker from Persona 5 replaced the two placeholder slots from the World of Light and the attack_log_parameter.prc file, the Hero from Dragon Quest XI and Banjo and Kazooie did not replace of any of the placeholder slots in the World of Light, two more placeholder slots were removed in v6.0.0, Byleth from Fire Emblem: Three Houses did not take any of the placeholder slots in v7.0.0, and one slot was replaced by Min Min in v8.0.0 and Steve replaced another slot in v9.0.0, it is unknown if this applies to the rest of the DLC fighters or not.
  
  The important bits here are Plant, Joker, Min Min, and Steve replaced slots, while Hero, Banjo, and Byleth did not. If this article is accurate, then there is one dummy string (dummy_01) unaccounted for, and slots can be arbitrarily removed or added at any time.

tl;dr version, any theory that involves unused entries in game data is faulty, especially if the data never existed in the first place (voice theory)

also real leak

Spoiler: real

 

[Rie Sonomura]

Yo so no clue how much people are still paying attention to the supposed voice theory and/or placeholder slots, but they don't seem to mean much of anything. I started poking around in the WoL param files to see if it was possible to add fights for the DLC characters, and in the process, I've discovered a few things about placeholder data.

• Voice Theory has absolutely no legs to stand on outside of a perfect square which is ultimately meaningless. The parameter file for the sound test (ui_voice_db.prc) has no placeholder entries in it. The entries for DLC characters are simply added to the end of the album list. The final two entries in the list are Sephiroth and Advent Cloud.
  
  
• Within the World of Light movement params (used for map movement), there exist 10 unoccupied entries. These entries start from dummy_07 and go to dummy_16. There are a few irregularities with the dummy slots. The first dummy string is dummy_02, and counting backwards from dummy_07 puts dummy_02 at Terry, leaving four slots (Plant, Joker, Hero, and Banjo) unaccounted for. The Cutting Room Floor has a bit more information that helps explain this discrepancy. I unfortunately only have the current patch to work from:
  
  A whopping 30 placeholder character slots existed in the files of the character selection screen at launch before being removed in the v2.0.0 update. There are also a slightly smaller 16 placeholder character slots in the files for the World of Light and in the attack_log_parameter.prc file, Piranha Plant and Joker from Persona 5 replaced the two placeholder slots from the World of Light and the attack_log_parameter.prc file, the Hero from Dragon Quest XI and Banjo and Kazooie did not replace of any of the placeholder slots in the World of Light, two more placeholder slots were removed in v6.0.0, Byleth from Fire Emblem: Three Houses did not take any of the placeholder slots in v7.0.0, and one slot was replaced by Min Min in v8.0.0 and Steve replaced another slot in v9.0.0, it is unknown if this applies to the rest of the DLC fighters or not.
  
  The important bits here are Plant, Joker, Min Min, and Steve replaced slots, while Hero, Banjo, and Byleth did not. If this article is accurate, then there is one dummy string (dummy_01) unaccounted for, and slots can be arbitrarily removed or added at any time.

tl;dr version, any theory that involves unused entries in game data is faulty, especially if the data never existed in the first place (voice theory)

also real leak

Spoiler: real

eyyyyyyy long time no see!

very interesting stuff all around, ill be bookmarking this for future ref

also that "leak" is Homura you can't fool me dawg

 

[SpectreJordan]

So do the 16 slots not actually mean anything? That part was a bit confusing to me.

 

[Staarih]

I feel the thing with Mario Kart is that they want to keep it very "internal" and as such they prefer to create new characters (the babies or metal versions) or add really basic/commonly known ones. When we go to spin-off territory the characters are outside of "inner Nintendo", often in games not developed internally. Guess this sorta applies with DK (Rare/Retro) and WarioWare too. Luckily we are seeing the likes of Dixie show up so hopefully the roster expands in future installments. I'm totally expecting Pauline and Cappy (anything Odyssey), maybe Peachette too, beginning to show up more prominently at least.

As for guest characters, I think adding Animal Crossing lead to the inclusion of Splatoon (the same development team), though obviously both are huge Nintendo IP's as well. And Link is Link. If ARMS continues to be a thing, I wouldn't be surprised to have a character from that game in Mario Kart as the same team was behind both games (Mario Kart 8 and ARMS).

 

[Deleted member]

eyyyyyyy long time no see!

very interesting stuff all around, ill be bookmarking this for future ref

also that "leak" is Homura you can't fool me dawg

No it's absolutely real.

So do the 16 slots not actually mean anything? That part was a bit confusing to me.

They 100% mean nothing. As of right now, there are 10 placeholder slots in the WoL file, plus the 9 existing DLC characters is 19 slots with 15 dummy strings. Characters arbitrarily replace or do not replace placeholder slots, which means there is no obligation to fill every slot.

 

[SharkLord]

So do the 16 slots not actually mean anything? That part was a bit confusing to me.

From the looks of it, all the placeholder slots mean jack when it comes to theories and patterns. At least, that's what I got out of it

 

[Michael the Spikester]

I'm still of the belief that this will be it for DLC fighters after this pass. I'd love for four more at least to round up 90 (92) but I just don't see it at this point and imagine Nintendo is gonna want to start development on the next game.

I also think folks on the RTC thread is being too optimistic about Crash. A reminder Crash 4 sold poorly in Japan showing Crash ain't as popular as he used to be in the 90s.

For example, remember when we were all so sure of Shadow being a lock as an Echo of Sonic despite popularity? Look how that turned out. Don't get your hopes up again if that's the case.

Then there's also the recent case of Activision pulling a Disney regarding that canceled Crash cartoon. They can be just as stingy.

 

[Rie Sonomura]

speaking of, if the WoL slots aren't the cause, then why does the CSS crash once you pass 91?

 

[Michael the Spikester]

speaking of, if the WoL slots aren't the cause, then why does the CSS crash once you pass 91?

More the reason why I'm not suspecting individual DLC or a Pass 3 after this one.

 

[Rie Sonomura]

More the reason why I'm not suspecting individual DLC or a Pass 3 after this one.

would we be at 91 after this pass is done tho? i think we'd be off by a few

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

I also think folks on the RTC thread is being too optimistic about Crash. A reminder Crash 4 sold poorly in Japan showing Crash ain't as popular as he used to be in the 90s.

To be fair negotiations took place long ago enough that Crash 4 not doing big numbers in Japan (something that admittedly shows why a simontantous Switch release could have helped it) wouldn't affect his Smash chances. Crash in general feels like a more mainstream Banjo-Kazooie choice anyway, with a focus on the Western market while still being familiar with much of the Japanese audience.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

To be fair negotiations took place long ago enough that Crash 4 not doing big numbers in Japan (something that admittedly shows why a simontantous Switch release could have helped it) wouldn't affect his Smash chances. Crash in general feels like a more mainstream Banjo-Kazooie choice anyway, with a focus on the Western market while still being familiar with much of the Japanese audience.

Crash 4 selling poorly in Japan though shows he isn't as popular as he once were though. I doubt anything would drop in popularity in the span of a few years.

 

[Otoad64]

would we be at 91 after this pass is done tho? i think we'd be off by a few

we'd be at 88, and that's only counting trainer seperately

 

[SharkLord]

Crash 4 not selling poorly in Japan though shows he isn't as popular as he once were though. I doubt anything would drop in popularity in the span of a few years.

Wasn't that only focusing on physical sales though? Because without the digital sales it's only half of the story.