I do think it's really in Nintendo's best interest to reveal the first fighter of Volume 2 sooner rather than later. Like, yes, on paper we just got Byleth and the wait until E3 isn't
that long. But my issue is that since Terry was released in November of last year, we've only had a 2 week stretch between learning who Byleth even was and their release before returning right back to general radio silence. I've always championed the idea that a consistent roadmap that keep customers informed who is coming next is the best option for Nintendo/Sakurai, which is obviously just armchair game advertising, but it just sounds like such a good idea. Going from November 2019 to June 2020 with a less than 2 week period of conversation of being able to discuss a new Smash fighter just seems absurdly non communicative even by Nintendo's standards considering how much they've let Smash consistently be up front in the news cycle since Ultimate was first announced.
Also,
PushDustIn's translation of Sakurai's Tweet regarding the next Fighter's Pass is that Challenger Pack #6 would take "Some time" to reveal not "a little while" which I see so many people run with. I generally trust PushDustin's translations in that regard, and I would generally conclude that "some time" is a shorter amount of time than "a little while" in terms of just semantics. Maybe
A
Ayumi Tachibana
can comment upon this situation since I know they've pointed out stuff in translations before?
I get it, we're ridiculously spoiled children who have had one of the most convenient hype cycles ever and we should be able to wait, and yes, Nintendo certainly has more than Smash (though I think on average people expecting a 2020 blowout are also being too optimistic ironically after 2019 had
so goddamn much packed in and that's why they've kind of pushed Smash and Pokemon DLC as the big things in 2020)... but this is a whiplash inducing pivot to go from constant updates and information to near constant radio silence regarding Smash. People can talk about Joker all they want, but we knew he was coming at least and we also got a major update in Piranha Plant in between Joker's reveal and release, and we also got an update that pointed to 3.0 being a huge update with new modes. Joker's period was not that bad really in retrospect. My big fear is that, yes, we're waiting until E3 2020 and then they're just going to shadow drop that one character and we'll go back to radio silence and that will be indicative of Nintendo drip feeding us additional Smash characters and news.
Also, Nintendo has positioned Fighter's Pass Volume 2 in a big way that would surprise me for it to be so absent from 2020.
More Smash DLC was arguably the biggest or second biggest announcement during that September Direct, and like I said, Nintendo seem to be promoting it and Pokemon DLC pretty hard as a couple of their biggest things in 2020.
