On the same note, you can still have a character like Geno or Chocobo and still promote the hell out of games coming to your system or already on your system..
I think Cloud is already enough to represent the Final Fantasy games coming to the Switch; I think that's why his emblem is "FF" instead of the comet, in order to represent the title of Final Fantasy in an acronym. I don't even think third-parties can get more than two unique newcomers per franchise, either. Don't forget that Nintendo would have to go through another Final Fantasy composer to get their expensive tracks again for Chocobo's stage; we saw how many tracks FF still has, I doubt Nintendo or Sakurai would want to go through the trouble of getting more expensive FF tracks from the same composer again. Also, Nobuo Uematsu, the FF composer who owns and made the tracks for the Midgar stage, announced that he's very ill and is taking a year-long hiatus from his projects; this was announced back in September. If the DLC was just decided by Nintendo a few weeks ago, it's clear that they couldn't choose a FF rep because the composer is not available. So this deconfirms Chocobo or another FF rep for DLC. Poor guy... I hope the FF composer takes it easy and gets better.
I know that Chocobo itself is just a casual enemy, and we all know enemies can get in the game (Piranha Plant), but wouldn't it be more wise to pick the fan-favorite character that got a Mii costume, which also got the most spotlight (the only mii costume with a splash screen) in the final Smash 4 presentation for Mii costumes? Also, wouldn't it be more wise to pick Sakurai's favorite? Nintendo could've put Geno on that list because Sakurai did explain his liking for Geno, so I'm sure Nintendo put some of Sakurai's interested characters on there; I don't see why they wouldn't, considering that Sakurai has already done a lot for Nintendo for the past two decades. It's clear that Nintendo or Miyamoto would do a favor for Sakurai; it's also clear that Nintendo does care about Super Mario RPG.
-Don't forget about the tweet Nintendo sent from earlier in May, asking us if we were on Team
MALLOW or Team
GENO.
"Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars launched for the Super NES on this day in 1996! Are you Team Mallow or Team Geno?" -Nintendo
-Remember Geno's Mii costume.
"And thanks to our relationship with Square Enix, we will release a Mii fighter costume." This quote could have A LOT of meaning behind it! Perhaps it was,
"And due to Nintendo's good relationship with Square, Nintendo was nice enough to get us Geno's Mii costume!" Remember that Geno is a Mario character, and I believe Mario characters can only be given under the authority of Miyamoto because he made the Mario characters, after all, and there's some stuff going around saying that Miyamoto created Geno, he's just owned by Square.
-Don't forget about the topic of SMRPG being discussed at Nintendo back in 2015, even stated by a senior artist at Nintendo that drew Geno and posted it on his Tumblr page... now all of a sudden the post was deleted THIS year.
-I know this one might be too coincidental, but that profile icon in the Battle Arena could already be hinting Geno's inclusion. It was actually unexpected and the attention was mostly brought to the center of the screen, not the left where he was. His icon on the screen goes away very fast, too, so Sakurai could be hinting us with Geno with something in a Direct; he already DID hint King K. Rool in the E3 Direct, so hinting Geno with a minor appearance as a profile icon in a Battle Arena makes a little sense. ALSO, I have a theory: What if those profile icons aren't actually in the game? What if the profile icons in the Battle Arena are just your profile pictures on your Nintendo profile? Putting Geno as a Nintendo profile picture could mean that Nintendo has his rights, which could also mean...