Been waiting for this.
Why all 5 characters should be third-party:
Chance: 95%-Okay, I've got quite my good chunk of reasons to expect this. Not as big as the average "champion nominator" (as in, the people who nominate something and make a big post once the time comes to rate that thing) comment, but still quite long:
*It's my weakest argument, but I honestly think it may have an impact.
Let's go back and look at Smash 4's DLC. Ryu, Cloud and Bayonetta all had the same content and price as the ones that will be available here: a character, a stage and a bunch of songs; all for 6$, of course that’s just the individual Price and not the Wii U+3DS bundles, but it’s not like that will ever happen here. The fact that they are all third-party should probably be small a sign of that.
*Now, let's check what Nintendo themselves got to offer next year on the game department, to see if there's anything to look after: Animal Crossing, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Pokémon Gen 8, Daemon X Machina and Yoshi's Crafted World. With all due honesty, I beg to see what characters do these games can really offer, but I'm going to cover that better in the next argument.
*Remember when I said I had something to say about Tails that I held back specifically for this? Well, here it is: every character has to offer a stage and songs. Sonic already has not one, but two stages, and decent selection of songs to represent his franchise, hence part of why I don’t see the two-tailed fox happening (though I’d lie if I said there aren't some good Sonic songs absent from the game like With Me or the Crush 40 version of Seven Rings in Hand). If we're going with Nintendo characters or even other character-represented franchises in general, I'm honestly having a hard time thinking about their availability. What can you give Bandana Dee to justify the bundle? Or Porky (which is why I don't see him happening)? Or Sylux, since there’s no existing Metroid Prime 4 gameplay footage as of this date? Hell, let's return to Smash 4 again, who was the only Nintendo newcomer? Oh right, that was Corrin, and he only came with a pair of songs for an existing stage, which is in my honest opinion, what should be done with that kind of newcomers. I can only think of three characters from existing franchises that could offer that kind of deal are Sephiroth (or any other Final Fantasy character, really), Chun-Li and Elma, and that's only because both of their games have more than enough music to let creativity flow through my mind. Also, I didn't think of it back then, but that's another reason why I don't see Rex happening, if they wanted him as a full-fledged character, then they shouldn't have included XC2 songs in the game. Most possible third-party newcomers wouldn't suffer this problem, because there's a lot of material available on those regards. And now that I mentioned Rex...
*If leakers and theories are to be believed (which I do), Mii costumes are compensating for the character's otherwise complete absence from the game. So no Lip, no Rex, no Saki, and so on. Rex's more so, because the whole point of it is to make people feel like they're using the actual character; bringing him later on in the pass would just ruin its purpose.
*This is technically cheating, but I want to bring another fighting game to this: Injustice 2. Way back in 2016, when we barely knew anything about the game aside from some characters,
Ed Boon was asked about bringing guest characters into the game, and this is what he said:
I always think there’s a novelty to it and there’s a certain amount of people who think that when they see a guest character that it took the slot of a DC character that they wanted to have, but you know, Scorpion in Injustice was the most downloaded of all the characters. There was a coolness and a novelty factor to seeing the mixing of the things. Alien and Predator in Mortal Kombat X were the most downloaded of those, so I would be surprised if we didn’t do any of that.
Basically, he says that guest characters are attractive and that they're best-sellers, which is something I agree with. Don't believe me? Go look at what happened with Cloud or the Ninja Turtles, it's clear these characters were attractive to the general public. Of course, we don't have proof to know if guests are as best-selling in Smash as they are in NRS' games, but reactions quite tell who impressed people more. Man, it's weird how no one never asks which DLC character has sold the most, even though it could be a very important factor for speculation and possible additions.
*And then, there's just the overall idea that
Nintendo wants these characters to be "must-buys" and
bring a whole new level of fun. Where's the fun on another Pokémon or Fire Emblem character who solely exists to persuade people into buying their new game entries? Clearly not something people will be interested in after the whole Corrin fiasco.
The only reason why I'm not giving it a 100% chance is because irony is the biggest ***** in life and twists can happen.
Want: 100%-Hmm, let me take a look at what Nintendo can offer for once, including characters rated here (keep in mind they’re just opinions and not arguments):
Another Pokémon: Man, I love Pokémon to death, but in Smash, they’re all so meh to me. I can grab them up every here and then and have fun with ‘em (Pichu and Incineroar mostly), but nothing that I ever turn into a main. Don’t get me wrong, I would’ve loved to have Gardevoir or Darkrai as playable, both being my favorite pokémon, but it’s because of that same feeling that I wasn’t bothered by their deconfirmation at all.
Another Fire Emblem: Please no. I’ve had enough of them, in fact, many had it. Sakurai thought that as well. They’re all ****ing boring, aesthetics and gameplay-wise. Just because the next protagonist will have an axe doesn’t make it any better or more interesting than the guy with the K9999 arm, who is considered to be one of the worst characters ever included in the series.
Sylux: So he has a health-draining laser and his own morph ball, right. Why do we even think this guy is going to be on Metroid Prime 4 again? Oh yes, it was because of a small cameo at the end of that dumpster fire of a game that is Federation Force.
Porky: Giygas didn’t have a spirit either, so that’s not an excuse. What about the stage and songs issue I mentioned? New Pork City already exists, not to mention, there were only 2 new remixes: Magicant and Fourside, so no good reason to expect them to do more for DLC.
Adeleine: Never played Star Allies, but I sure as hell played Kirby 64, and I assure you she isn’t any more memorable than Zero-Two, or the fact that you land into some kind of post-apocalypthic Earth. After you beat her drawings (because you don’t actually fight her), all she does is draw Maximum Tomatoes for you.
And now, let’s look at some third-party characters on the other hand, and for the sake of originality, I’ll refrain from bringing Banjo, Geno, or any of the characters in the 5chan rumour (even though they illustrate things just as well as the ones I’ll mention):
Crash Bandicoot: Platforming icon. Available on Nintendo. Used to be a big rival to Mario. May not be very fun to play as, but people (including myself) will sure as hell welcome him with open arms just for the fact that he’s now going to be able to fight him for the first time.
KOS-MOS: Yeah, those religious references are always going to be her greatest wall (words of a catholic man here), but if there’s anything I can say about her on the gameplay standpoint (using Project X Zone and Card Sagas Wars as reference), is that she’s incredibly fun to play, and also more visually appealing than Rex and his blades.
Neku Sakuraba: May still need to play TWEWY, but I can sure as hell say I’d love me a Jack-of-all-trades carácter, pulling all sorts of moves in the same vein as Mega Man, but probably more fun in the long-run (because the more human/anime-esque guests are overall better than the cartoony mascots).
Morrigan Aensland (yeah, had to overlook one): She may not be the most fun Darkstalkers character, but she’s still its “mascot”, and a prominent Capcom character. If it means content from that franchise, I’ll take it.
Nightmare: We don’t have a medieval knight in the game yet, and with such a cool design, brutal moves and a really cool-looking sword, he’d stand out very well next to the other playable swordsmen.
All these guys still look more interesting than those five Nintendo characters combined. it's what I honestly see in terms of quality. Would I still buy a Nintendo character? Yes, but I wouldn't care. "But they gotta be promotional", that's what the 5chan rumour showcased, and it still pulled an amazing Nintendo-less line-up.
Nominations: Dante x5