You can...? That's crazy...
It's not anything supported by Official statements, but there are some big context clues to suggest that Nintendo probably did want Resident Evil or Monster Hunter
-The biggest hint for me is through the Franchises already represented through the DLC, In particular Dragon Quest, Minecraft, and Tekken
With these 3 franchises, Nintendo was namedropped or hinted as a Big reason why these Franchises were added in. In Minecraft and Tekken's case, Sakurai had a very hard time figuring out how to implement these through characters, and is probably why they had to wait till FP2 to be in. Nintendo was also the reason Sakurai and Nintendo met up with Square for Dragon Quest, since Sakurai didn't think it be possible to get Dragon Quest into Smash
This is different from every other Franchise/Character represented in Smash DLC (Except for Byleth) since Nintendo wasn't mentioned in the reasons they got in. I'm not saying the other Characters or Franchises weren't chosen by Nintendo, as they wouldn't be in the Pass otherwise, but I think it's obvious that Nintendo had priority in certain choices
Byleth was added to represent a Game that people would be playing Now, but Dragon Quest, Minecraft, and Tekken were probably added because all 3 share similarities with each other
-They are Huge franchises, in terms of Sales, Legacy, appeal. We are talking 50 Million Sales and Higher here
-They all appeal to New audiences not tapped through Smash yet
Resident Evil is the Biggest Franchise Capcom has at the moment, selling 110 Million copies, which if we compare the DLC in the Smash, only Minecraft and Final Fantasy surpass that number, however With Final Fantasy Cloud is already in the game. Resident Evil also taps into an really untapped audience with the Horror Genre.
Monster Hunter is also no slouch as it as 72 Million Sales, and Also the Best Selling Capcom game in Monster Hunter World. It also especially is a phenomenon in Japan, and with Nintendo audiences
With the fact that These Franchises are as big as they are (and we also have to take into account other media like the Resident Evil Movies), the fact they are still heavily relevant (if not the most relevant they've been in their history), and that Capcom is already tangled with Smash, I really don't see anyway that Nintendo didn't try to go for Resident Evil or Monster Hunter
-There have been rumors that there were discussions for both Resident Evil and Monster Hunter, but the negotiations had fallen through somehow. The Former rumor was paraded by Indiegamerchick, which also got paraded by Papagenos. The Latter wasn't suggested by Imran Kahn, however it wasn't actually said to be Monster Hunter, but it was heavily suggested
Ultimately we wouldn't know why the talks had fallen through, but I don't think it was on Nintendo's part, but was probably on the part of Capcom, or Sakurai if he had a hard time figuring how to pull of these franchises as Playable characters
I do think that talks will be tried again for Playable characters, at least for one of these Franchises, Especially as we get to a point where choices for Japanese Franchises are gonna be more Niche and Niche in nature, and Nintendo is gonna have to rely on Western Franchises to get some big Franchises, which we know talks quite a bit longer in talks than with Japanese Companies like Capcom