Official Newcomer/DLC Speculation Discussion

[BernkastelWitch]

I'm personally interested if Nintendo thinks those fangames are enough presence. That's gonna sound like heresy, but give me a moment. It may not be ZUN-made, but it's still Touhou content being sold on the Switch. If Nintendo thinks the Touhou brand is profitable, they could ("Could" being the keyword here, we can't get everybody in Smash) decide that a Touhou Challenger Pack is a good idea.

Even if it isn't official ZUN branded Touhou content, it is still Touhou content in the end. A good chunk of the fandom usually dips into both official and fanmade content at the same time so that should count for something. And Nintendo has to be aware of its Doujin nature so the fan content being sold should still count for something.

 

[3BitSaurus]

My guess is they're trumpets, just used in a way that they generally aren't.

They could also be synthesized.

Yeah, maybe. I can never tell, because they sound completely different from any kind of instrument I know lol. Even synthesized ones.

Then again, I'm no musician, so... I'll just leave it at "it's part of Touhou's musical identity".

 

[DarthEnderX]

But Shantae has seniority over all of them and has 5 games while those guys only have one. Popularity isn't the only factor in inclusion decision. Not saying Shantae is going to happen, but she has seniority and moveset potential to be chosen over the rest to be the Indie rep despite her games not being as popular.

I still don't consider Shantae an indie rep, because WayForward is not an indie developer.

The last couple Shantae games were made by teams of 50+ people. That's about as indie as Capcom.

I could easily make a moveset out of any GTA character, it isn't very difficult if you have played and understand the games,

The only real barrier to a Smash moveset is a recovery move...and GTA has jetpacks.

we've gone from parents who are terrified of its impact

This is probably the only real thing that would keep an M-rated series out of Smash. If the series is famous for causing some kind of parental panic at some point. Series like Mortal Kombat, Doom or GTA.

 

[SharkLord]

Wouldn't that make them an official part of the series though?

Basically,
Official: Made by ZUN
Unofficial: Not made by ZUN
It can get kinda tricky at times, since sometimes ZUN lets fans help him out with the spinoffs (Most notably Twilight Frontier, who developed all six fighting games and are now working on Gouyoku Ibun), and other times ZUN himself steps down to compose music for the fangames.

I don't know what it is about those horns (?), but they're usually the first thing I use to identify something as "Touhou music".

Yeah, ZUN loves those trumpets. Heck, the fandom even calls them ZUNpets, they're used so often. It's probably the high-pitched synthesized sound that makes them so distinctive.

 

[Louie G.]

South Korea/China appeal - a LoL rep
Female appeal - either a character from a game commonly played by girls, like Arle or Layton (puzzle games are popular among females)

This is what I had in mind too. Potentially Overwatch for South Korea / China as well.

As much as I don't want League in Smash... if the monkey's paw insists that's what it takes to get Arle, I'll accept it.

 

[SharkLord]

If we wanna play the game of appealing to certain demographics... not including PP, Byleth or Min Min:
Joker - appeals to JRPG fans who grew up on the PlayStation line of consoles
Hero - appeals to Japan (DQ is a cultural staple there)
Banjo - appeals to the west
Terry - appeals to Latin America
Steve - worldwide appeal to all demographics

character that appeals to South Korea and/or China - ????
Character that appeals to a female audience - ????

Non-Japanese East Asian appeal: Reimu Hakurei
Female audience appeal: Also Reimu Hakurei

 

[3BitSaurus]

Non-Japanese East Asian appeal: Reimu Hakurei
Female audience appeal: Also Reimu Hakurei

Can't wait for Sakurai to try and explain to us why we're getting the same character twice as CP8 and CP9.

"No, you're not seeing double. The next character is Reimu Hakurei, followed by Also Reimu Hakurei, but with a different stage and more songs."

 

[MarioRaccoon]

Isabelle is our female rep. Animal Crossing is a game highly played by female.

Arle from Puyo Puyo? I think its preferred by men because she is has the appearance of “cute little girl” (and this is an horrible way of thinking) Being honest, I known very few female videogame players but I think they just play the same popular games as men do, like Minecraft or Fortnite.

You want another dual male/female rep like Steve/Alex? Put Crash and Coco together, you have to adapt Coco proportions a bit but if they do that to Enderman, they can do it for Crash little sister.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

Being honest, I known very few female videogame players but I think they just play the same popular games as men do, like Minecraft or Fortnite.

While I don't think you're inherently wrong on that assumption, the player base for the puzzle genre for tends to be predominately female in most studies.

 

[3BitSaurus]

While I don't think you're inherently wrong on that assumption, the player base for the puzzle genre for tends to be predominately female in most studies.

Puzzle and in some cases, Adventure games (as in, VNs and the, uh, "old school" adventure kinda games) tend to either have an even split or more women.

It was the case with both Ace Attorney and Layton, despite both series starting with male protagonists (can't find my original source for this, tho, so take this with a grain of salt).

 

[SKX31]

What's a Europe? Is that where Japan is?

It's the place where no one can seem to agree on much despite an interconnected history, where the type of food is important and the important people have a lot of influence.

Wait, did I just describe Medieval Europe or Feudal Japan? Or both? Or everything?

If we wanna play the game of appealing to certain demographics... not including PP, Byleth or Min Min:
Joker - appeals to JRPG fans who grew up on the PlayStation line of consoles
Hero - appeals to Japan (DQ is a cultural staple there)
Banjo - appeals to the west
Terry - appeals to Latin America
Steve - worldwide appeal to all demographics

character that appeals to South Korea and/or China - ????
Character that appeals to a female audience - ????

Huh, didn't see this one until now:

Character that appeals to South Korea and/or China: One could certainly make the argument that Terry ticks this box too, and that reveal did quite a lot in Chinese social media (KOF 97 was and still is incredibly popular in China, partly due to the ease of piracy. The ease of piracy also helped SNK in LatAm.)

The Steve reveal is probably the biggest there so far (I'd guess 500K Chinese views on the lower end, ca. 1 million on the higher end if my tally is indeed correct). I haven't looked into Korean forums as much - but I found a Korean Youtuber's reaction vid with 250K views.

As for characters not yet in, I'm going to say LoL or StarCraft. PUBG is a weird spot where it's big in both countries - but the Chinese version is rather different. MapleStory and DFO are still Top 10 games in Korea (and I believe at least DFO has a really strong Chinese playerbase), so they're valid options too. One could also argue Overwatch and Reimu. Really, the list is surprisingly long, but I'll go with LoL first.

Character that appeals to a female audience: This one is also surprisingly vast. I'm going to use this 2017 study as the baseline of my answer:

Arle is a strong choice because the Match-3 playerbase is largely female (and this would likely translate to Puyo Puyo). Wouldn't be surprised if characters like Reimu likewise have a decently strong case here. The Sims series is likewise played by a lot of girls / women. When it comes to spirited series, Ring Fit has a rather strong followings amongst girls and women too. Assassin's Creed and Dragon Age have rather strong female playerbases too, especially relative to their genres. I wouldn't be surprised if Resident Evil also has a strong following amongst girls and women, although I haven't found a direct source for that. Girls and women form a very strong part of the mobile audience - Candy Crush Saga is a major example. So a mobile rep could also in many cases be targeted towards women.

I'm going with Arle first.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

On the topic of female audiences and what they prefer compared to male audience, than my experiences have been that they liked games such as CS:GO, Dishonoured, Bioshock Infinite, DOOM, Halo, Tomb Raider and Assassin's Creed. Granted, one of those is my sister and the other two are people who went to the same college course as me and one of them liked the same anime as me. So that certainly affected my perception on what women like.

TLDR; Studies on female audiences for games are more important than your own personal experiences, because your own hobbies and interests can lean in too much with that and make it seem as though a lot of girls are tomboys or like things that males enjoy, giving people a limited outcome of the world.

 

[Icedragonadam]

Alright so this week should be the October Partner Direct as next week is Pikmin's 3 release.

I'm predicting so far:

Bravely Default II
Tales of Luminaria(new trademark that Namco Europe filed a while ago).

 

[3BitSaurus]

Huh, didn't see this one until now:

Character that appeals to South Korea and/or China: One could certainly make the argument that Terry ticks this box too, and that reveal did quite a lot in Chinese social media (KOF 97 was and still is incredibly popular in China, partly due to the ease of piracy. The ease of piracy also helped SNK in LatAm.)

The Steve reveal is probably the biggest there so far (I'd guess 500K Chinese views on the lower end, ca. 1 million on the higher end if my tally is indeed correct). I haven't looked into Korean forums as much - but I found a Korean Youtuber's reaction vid with 250K views.

As for characters not yet in, I'm going to say LoL or StarCraft. PUBG is a weird spot where it's big in both countries - but the Chinese version is rather different. MapleStory and DFO are still Top 10 games in Korea (and I believe at least DFO has a really strong Chinese playerbase), so they're valid options too. One could also argue Overwatch and Reimu. Really, the list is surprisingly long, but I'll go with LoL first.

Character that appeals to a female audience: This one is also surprisingly vast. I'm going to use this 2017 study as the baseline of my answer:

Arle is a strong choice because the Match-3 playerbase is largely female (and this would likely translate to Puyo Puyo). Wouldn't be surprised if characters like Reimu likewise have a decently strong case here. The Sims series is likewise played by a lot of girls / women. When it comes to spirited series, Ring Fit has a rather strong followings amongst girls and women too. Assassin's Creed and Dragon Age have rather strong female playerbases too, especially relative to their genres. I wouldn't be surprised if Resident Evil also has a strong following amongst girls and women, although I haven't found a direct source for that. Girls and women form a very strong part of the mobile audience - Candy Crush Saga is a major example. So a mobile rep could also in many cases be targeted towards women.

I'm going with Arle first.

A LoL rep and Arle, huh? Two of my most wanted list.

Really, I find it funny that this would be an absolute win as far as I'm concerned, even though I fit neither of those demographics.

 

[Mushroomguy12]

Happy Birthday Terra Branford!

Today we're wishing a happy birthday to Terra Branford, @FinalFantasy VI's mysterious young heroine 🎉 Show her what love is by giving her some appreciation (now!) 💖 pic.twitter.com/72Dm4pNJUF

— Square Enix (@SquareEnix) October 18, 2020

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

It is interesting how Nintendo's subtly shifted into quieter/minimal weekly announcements since Steve's reveal. Outside Partner Showcases I'm guessing that'll be the case for the rest of the year.

 

[Rie Sonomura]

It is interesting how Nintendo's subtly shifted into quieter/minimal weekly announcements since Steve's reveal. Outside Partner Showcases I'm guessing that'll be the case for the rest of the year.

i heard that Nintendo is FOR REAL serious about cracking down on leaks this time, to a point several people with insider connections have said "don't trust any leaks that pop up now" we may not even have that reddit person or Imran leaking up to an hour before anymore

if so this wait is gonna be HELL

 

[Cosmic77]

Not that I genuinely believe people are expecting this to be true, but be careful not to put too much stock in this "each character caters to a different region" theory. To be honest, I feel like the first two DLC characters (Joker and Hero) already make this hard to believe.

While I do think Sakurai tries to include requests and popular characters from outside Japan, I'm sure the process is more complicated than, "So we've already included a character for Japan and the US. Who would the Chinese want?"

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

i heard that Nintendo is FOR REAL serious about cracking down on leaks this time, to a point several people with insider connections have said "don't trust any leaks that pop up now" we may not even have that reddit person or Imran leaking up to an hour before anymore

if so this wait is gonna be HELL

One thing that I think is critical for creating realistic expectations is to really consider Nintendo's priorities. Basically there's not really much incentive to promote or hype that much stuff that's releasing after the holiday until that season's finished. That's not to say there's absolutely nothing that won't get revealed in the next two months for a 2021 release, but given Nintendo's tendency to play their cards close to their chest as of late and announce things much closer to release, the obvious conclusion is to expect no real explosion of news till after Christmas.

 

[SharkLord]

It's the place where no one can seem to agree on much despite an interconnected history, where the type of food is important and the important people have a lot of influence.

Wait, did I just describe Medieval Europe or Feudal Japan? Or both? Or everything?



Huh, didn't see this one until now:

Character that appeals to South Korea and/or China: One could certainly make the argument that Terry ticks this box too, and that reveal did quite a lot in Chinese social media (KOF 97 was and still is incredibly popular in China, partly due to the ease of piracy. The ease of piracy also helped SNK in LatAm.)

The Steve reveal is probably the biggest there so far (I'd guess 500K Chinese views on the lower end, ca. 1 million on the higher end if my tally is indeed correct). I haven't looked into Korean forums as much - but I found a Korean Youtuber's reaction vid with 250K views.

As for characters not yet in, I'm going to say LoL or StarCraft. PUBG is a weird spot where it's big in both countries - but the Chinese version is rather different. MapleStory and DFO are still Top 10 games in Korea (and I believe at least DFO has a really strong Chinese playerbase), so they're valid options too. One could also argue Overwatch and Reimu. Really, the list is surprisingly long, but I'll go with LoL first.

Character that appeals to a female audience: This one is also surprisingly vast. I'm going to use this 2017 study as the baseline of my answer:

Arle is a strong choice because the Match-3 playerbase is largely female (and this would likely translate to Puyo Puyo). Wouldn't be surprised if characters like Reimu likewise have a decently strong case here. The Sims series is likewise played by a lot of girls / women. When it comes to spirited series, Ring Fit has a rather strong followings amongst girls and women too. Assassin's Creed and Dragon Age have rather strong female playerbases too, especially relative to their genres. I wouldn't be surprised if Resident Evil also has a strong following amongst girls and women, although I haven't found a direct source for that. Girls and women form a very strong part of the mobile audience - Candy Crush Saga is a major example. So a mobile rep could also in many cases be targeted towards women.

I'm going with Arle first.

On the topic of Reimu and female demographics, Touhou has actually gained a rise in popularity among young girls in recent years thanks to the internet. This is what led to the recent crossover between Touhou and Hello Kitty (The second most profitable franchise in the world, mind you). If we're aiming at younger female players, I think it's safe to count Reimu.

 

[cashregister9]

Trying to predict characters based on Demographics is inherently faulty especially with broad categories like, "Women" and "South Koreans"

BUUUUT. The Trails series does tend to do quite well in China and South Korea...

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

It is interesting how Nintendo's subtly shifted into quieter/minimal weekly announcements since Steve's reveal. Outside Partner Showcases I'm guessing that'll be the case for the rest of the year.

I reckon all of the announcements during September was going to be what was revealed at E3.

 

[inksaver]

So I know Resident Evil seems unlikely because of the spirit event, but it makes me wonder if it would have a chance, especially since march 2021 will be Resident Evil’s 25th anniversary, not only that, they have several projects coming next year.

Resident Evil Village (game)
Resident Evil (movie reboot)
Resident Evil (netflix tv show)
Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness (cgi tv show)
Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness (manga tie-in)

And they also mentioned things planned for the anniversary. It will be a good year for RE fans and it would be complete with a Smash Rep. Just a thought.

 

[TheBeastHimself]

Here's something I found interesting, but I'm not sure it'd have any effect on this DLC pass. According to this article, Scott Hawkins, head of the developer relations team at NoA met with a Warner Bros executive to discuss bringing Mortal Kombat 11 to the Switch. The exchange went like this:

Warner Exec: Scott, are you sure Nintendo wants this game on Nintendo Switch?
Scott: Yes, we absolutely want this game.

Scott: He was concerned because its a mature-rated title that it wouldn't be Nintendo-friendly. But clearly after seeing the first month's worth of sales and see it be the number one game on the platform, it shows that yes, there is an audience. There's an audience for lots of different types of platforms, and this was a big success.

-------------

I'd say Scorpion has a shot if not this time, maybe the next time around.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Alright so this week should be the October Partner Direct as next week is Pikmin's 3 release.

I'm predicting so far:

Bravely Default II
Tales of Luminaria(new trademark that Namco Europe filed a while ago).

I'm adding onto that by predicting the leaked Mass Effect trilogy and Bayonetta 3. If I keep on predicting Bayonetta 3 will get a trailer in a direct any time soon, I'll eventually get it right!

 

[3BitSaurus]

Here's something I found interesting, but I'm not sure it'd have any effect on this DLC pass. According to this article, Scott Hawkins, head of the developer relations team at NoA met with a Warner Bros executive to discuss bringing Mortal Kombat 11 to the Switch. The exchange went like this:

Warner Exec: Scott, are you sure Nintendo wants this game on Nintendo Switch?
Scott: Yes, we absolutely want this game.

Scott: He was concerned because its a mature-rated title that it wouldn't be Nintendo-friendly. But clearly after seeing the first month's worth of sales and see it be the number one game on the platform, it shows that yes, there is an audience. There's an audience for lots of different types of platforms, and this was a big success.

-------------

I'd say Scorpion has a shot if not this time, maybe the next time around.

Tbh the main concern with a MK rep isn't really about the violence, but rather how the games don't have a presence in Japan - not as much as the west.

 

[SKX31]

Not that I genuinely believe people are expecting this to be true, but be careful not to put too much stock in this "each character caters to a different region" theory. To be honest, I feel like the first two DLC characters (Joker and Hero) already make this hard to believe.

While I do think Sakurai tries to include requests and popular characters from outside Japan, I'm sure the process is more complicated than, "So we've already included a character for Japan and the US. Who would the Chinese want?"

That's always going to be the case yes. might've been included for the Western DQ fans, but another likely major part of his inclusion is because DQ VIII was the best selling PS2 game in Japan. It does say quite a lot about how DQ's been able to maintain its position as a venerable institution within the Japanese gaming industry.

None of the games that have been listed would be solely due to said demographics either, there's a whole host of moving parts around a game's inclusion Looks at Steve.

The whole "region / demographic" thing was more of a thought experiment, and as long as it's just explicitedly so there's no real harm in that as long as one is aware of that. It is indeed faulty due the reason cashregister9 mentioned (broad categories very often are really bad markers, especially since tastes in video games are individual), so one has to keep that in mind.

One thing that I think is critical for creating realistic expectations is to really consider Nintendo's priorities. Basically there's not really much incentive to promote or hype that much stuff that's releasing after the holiday until that season's finished. That's not to say there's absolutely nothing that won't get revealed in the next two months for a 2021 release, but given Nintendo's tendency to play their cards close to their chest as of late and announce things much closer to release, the obvious conclusion is to expect no real explosion of news till after Christmas.

It'll be rather interesting to see how well the PS5 and XSX do at launch though. No, Nintendo does not directly compete with those, but if the PS5 or XSX does exceptionally well I'd be rather interested in seeing what Nintendo does in response.

(Yeah, I know the likely answer to that question is "They'll keep doing things according to their own time table", but I don't find it impossible that they'd shift an announcement up a bit to try and keep some eyes on Nintendo products.)

Trying to predict characters based on Demographics is inherently faulty especially with broad categories like, "Women" and "South Koreans"

BUUUUT. The Trails series does tend to do quite well in China and South Korea...

Wait, it was Trails? I was looking at Inven's (one of the main Korean gaming sites) console section and noticed that game was prominently featured, but had not a single clue what that was.

But yeah, I can confirm that Falcom has a decently solid foothold in those two countries too.

Tbh the main concern with a MK rep isn't really about the violence, but rather how the games don't have a presence in Japan - not as much as the west.

This is the main reason why I want a Mortal Kombat anime / OVA at some point. Things (by this I mean what can be officially released in Japan) are a teeny bit looser with mature animes than they are with games, and Castlevania got in when the most notable current thing was the Netflix series.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

MK's in a catch-22 situation where a big Smash appearance could get Japanese fans curious/interested about the series and yet its not likely to get in Smash because Japanese fans aren't into it.

 

[Dinoman96]

The fact that the recent Mortal Kombat games don't even come out in Japan pretty much kills its chances of ever being in Smash Bros.

 

[Dr. Jojo Phantasma]

I honestly expect Sol Badguy to be in the pass more than Scorpion.

 

[Wigglerman]

I honestly expect Sol Badguy to be in the pass more than Scorpion.

As much as I'd find an MK Character to be amazing, I would agree that just about ANY other fighting game franchise is more likely than MK. Not to say MK is totally out of the cards because...well...we have no actual way to know for sure what is and isn't possible for the pass right now. Tis been nuts.

 

[Captain Shwampy]

Isabelle is our female rep. Animal Crossing is a game highly played by female.

Arle from Puyo Puyo? I think its preferred by men because she is has the appearance of “cute little girl” (and this is an horrible way of thinking) Being honest, I known very few female videogame players but I think they just play the same popular games as men do, like Minecraft or Fortnite.

You want another dual male/female rep like Steve/Alex? Put Crash and Coco together, you have to adapt Coco proportions a bit but if they do that to Enderman, they can do it for Crash little sister.

I cant find the male to female demographic thing for puyo puyo but if remember correctly the series is more popular with women than man

 

[mynameisBlade]

I don't think pics of the day have anything to do with the upcoming DLC beyond ones that are already announced, like Steve.

Completely agree. That's why I said "IF".

 

[SpectreJordan]

If we wanna play the game of appealing to certain demographics... not including PP, Byleth or Min Min:
Joker - appeals to JRPG fans who grew up on the PlayStation line of consoles
Hero - appeals to Japan (DQ is a cultural staple there)
Banjo - appeals to the west
Terry - appeals to Latin America
Steve - worldwide appeal to all demographics

character that appeals to South Korea and/or China - ????
Character that appeals to a female audience - ????

South Korea/China: League of Legends character

Appeals to a female audience: Lara Croft, Tom Nook or a new Zelda character

Gonna add some extra demographics too:

PC Gamers: League character, World of Warcraft character, Gordon Freeman

Xbox gamers & FPS fans: Master Chief, Doom Slayer

Old school gamers: Ryu Hayabusa, Bill Rizer, Billy & Jimmy, Arthur

Modern Japanese gamers/a Japanese game with worldwide appeal: Monster Hunter

Europe: ??? They either seem to be into the same games as Americans or strategy/weird PC games that won’t work in Smash. If there’s a front runner for Europe, I’d like to know that’d be interesting info

 

[Curious Villager]

Puzzle and in some cases, Adventure games (as in, VNs and the, uh, "old school" adventure kinda games) tend to either have an even split or more women.

It was the case with both Ace Attorney and Layton, despite both series starting with male protagonists (can't find my original source for this, tho, so take this with a grain of salt).

Yeah the majority of the playerbase for Layton are women, its pretty much the reason why his daughter exists as well, since Level-5 was trying to appeal to them with a female protagonist and all.

I'm not as sure about the playerbase for Ace Attorney though, but I'd imagine that it has quite a lot of female fans as well.

 

[JOJONumber691]

Honestly, Reimu seems like a character who could get in. Only one problem. How would Nintendo feel about a character who is so heavily linked to Endorsed Fan Games getting into their Crossover Platform Fighter?

 

[Sc_Ev0lution]

Honestly, Reimu seems like a character who could get in. Only one problem. How would Nintendo feel about a character who is so heavily linked to Endorsed Fan Games getting into their Crossover Platform Fighter?

I mean, they let Sonic in...

seriously though, I'm not sure Nintendo cares about the policies of other companies and creators regarding fan content. It's clear they're protective of their own ips, but I don't see a reason why they shouldn't be ambivalent towards ones they don't.

 

[PeridotGX]

Honestly, Reimu seems like a character who could get in. Only one problem. How would Nintendo feel about a character who is so heavily linked to Endorsed Fan Games getting into their Crossover Platform Fighter?

Minecraft has a massive modding scene that has been acknowledged by the developers (Pistons and Horses were taken from a mod). If they're OK with that, I can't see them having a problem with Touhou.

 

[Guybrush20X6]

Minecraft has a massive modding scene that has been acknowledged by the developers (Pistons and Horses were taken from a mod). If they're OK with that, I can't see them having a problem with Touhou.

Not to mention we have a song that debuted in an edgy Earthbound fangame as DLC in the game.

 

[PeridotGX]

Shantae is a half genie that can transform into different animals and can use spells. If she got in, there would be no one like her on the roster. She has amazing moveset potential to go off of.

Mr. Rime has incredible move set potential. He can create barriers, use his cane for psychic attack, and create ice.

Cinderance can kick fire.

which one would be the one to get in?