Huh I was never was arguing about whether or not Ridley or K Rool was influenced by those rules I was just saying 3rd parties aren't affected by promotion or relevancy
^
This is true. I fully agree. None of the 3rd parties are really added because of promotion or relevancy.
One could say Bayonetta, but she is very recent in everything herself, so that's not a good point.
Street Fighter is an on going series, and SF II is always getting re-re-re x100-released, so he is always relevent anyways.
Cloud Strife was the primary protagonist in the 7th installment, and while it is a shed of light that this particular game is getting it's HD remake, I think it's a mere coincidence, and the sole reason for Cloud is because he is the most popular main protagonist of the whole franchise which was the key factor for his inclusion.
Snake was first and foremost a request by his friend, Kojima during Melee. We saw how that ended for Smash 4. What happened for Ultimate is beyond me, but I'm really happy that Sakurai and Konami could still play ball with each other. I'm sure Sakurai and Kojima had a nice dinner, sipping some wine, and Kojima told Sakurai that it's ok ... Put my baby boii back, I don't mind.
(If anyone want to read my fan fic, go to www.justjoking---)
Mega Man has a huge historical following with Nintendo, and even if Capcom has not done too much for him recently, he still got a lot of great justice by Nintendo. Meaning, relevancy did not be an issue.
Pac-Man is the father of video game icons. He is more or less a brand than a continued series of evolution.
Sonic, well ... Gotta go fast, he is always there. It's everything Sega cares about, besides Pyuo Pyuo and Yakuza.