Well, I respect your opinion and I can see where you’re coming from. I just don’t see that happening. And frankly I’d be very disappointed if that were to actually happen. Not because I’m against third party characters, but because there are so many other first party series that haven’t been represented with fighters yet.
Smash at it’s core is a celebration of video game characters, but mainly Nintendo characters. “Nintendo All-Stars” as the melee intro suggests. I’d be fine with a couple more third party characters since of course Geno is one, but there are so many Nintendo series that deserve love and hopefully Sakurai sees that which I think he will.
Nintendo calling the shots and making the Pass all third party characters made sense from a business point of view. I think Sakurai will be more selective with first and third parties.
I just hope we don’t get anymore Pokémon and Fire Emblem characters. I love those series and I adored Three Houses, but let’s get some other series represented or more characters.
I feel like though Ultimate definitely has shifted away from being branded as a Nintendo crossover. It still technically is because most of the characters are from Nintendo, but looking back, it definitely seems like they didn't emphasize it for Ultimate as much as they did previously. Like the promotional stuff for these games used to label it as Nintendo's All Stars but with Ultimate, they instead emphasize it as a gaming crossover. The evolution of the box cases is a good example of this. I believe Ultimate is the only one to not say it is a Nintendo crossover specifically.
I also think it's worth pointing out that although Nintendo pushed 3rd parties for this DLC specifically, it should also be worth noting that Sakurai back in 4 picked and added Ryu, Bayonetta, and Cloud. Cloud in particular was completely insane at the time because of how impossible it seemed. Although he did add 1st party characters, most of them were veterans and the one that wasn't was a character not many people care about. Switching to Ultimate now, the one first party DLC character currently is also one that I don't think most had in mind. Some are still upset about it. We also don't know if Nintendo has their hand in the next batch of DLC as well.
I do want to claify though, despite how doubtful I am with the future DLC abundantly being 1st parties, I'm not entirely hating on their inclusion. I'm kinda slightly torn with it as well. I like the 3rd parties because it satisfies the crossover aspect I really like about this installment in particular. Not many official crossovers are this big and it's kinda fun and surreal at times to see franchises that have no business interacting with each other interacting with each other. But then again I also would like some pre established 1st party franchises to get more reps. As a Zelda fan, it kinda sucks that the representation consists of 3 Links, 2 Zelda's, and Ganondorf which is just a semi clone of Falcon. But then again again, there are also more interesting crossovers that can happen if they go for newer franchises instead. Which is why I think they will go the 3rd party route instead. However, hopefully in the end, there will be enough slots to do both and satisfy both groups