Like I said in an earlier post, Disney is really strict with their copyrights, but they like money. Smash Bros. is a monstrously huge franchise, way bigger than Kingdom Hearts. Smash 4 sold more than KH 1 and II and all of their re-releases combined.
Considering Disney is such a behemoth of a company, I really don't see what Disney would profit from here. I guarantee you that even with Smash making more money than Kingdom Hearts does, Disney would not profit anywhere near as much.
Remember that Smash does not rely solely around Disney. Money has to be put into the gameplay, stages, characters, music, voice acting, game modes; all that good stuff. By the time it comes around to third parties, I assume that the "slice of the pie" they would get from the profit would amount to nothing worth noting, ESPECIALLY for a company with a
net worth of over 95 billion dollars. It simply wouldn't be worth it for Disney.
In the case Disney demands more money to make it worth their while, at that point, it isn't worth it for Nintendo anymore, because it means they either have to put more money into the game, or shaft other parts of the game as a result. It's either a win-lose or a lose-win. I cannot see a situation where both Nintendo AND Disney would be satisfied. And even if Disney is willing to give Sora up for free (and considering how greedy the Mouse is, I highly doubt that), Nintendo and Disney then both have to enter copyright hell.
Having Sora be featured in it is basically free advertising, there's no logical reason they'd be against it. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if Disney went to them about it.
And why would Nintendo want this at all? At least with Cloud in SSB4, there's the argument that he could be used to advertise some Nintendo games:
- Final Fantasy I-VI's Virtual Console Releases on Wii U / 3DS
- Theatrhythm Final Fantasy on 3DS
- Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call on 3DS
- Final Fantasy Explorers on 3DS
- Final Fantasy on the NES Classic
Not to mention, he represents not only the entire Final Fantasy franchise, but Square Enix as a whole as well, and Square Enix themselves have numerous games on the Wii U and 3DS platforms as well.
In the case of Sora, he can't advertise anything. There's no Kingdom Hearts games on the Switch.
There aren't any plans for any Kingdom Hearts on the Switch. It would be direct, 100% advertising for Sony and Microsoft. Even when you look at Disney games on the Switch, there's:
and that's it. There is no gain for Nintendo here in terms of advertising (unless Cars 3: Driven to Win is a REALLY BIG deal for them). It would do nothing but bring awareness to something they don't have, being Kingdom Hearts III.
The biggest one, obviously, is that Disney needed to sign off on it for the game to exist in the first place. Disney made all those crazy demands because they could kill the project whenever they wanted, and Capcom followed those demands because they knew that. Smash doesn't have that problem. If Disney decides to make crazy demands that'll ruin the game, Sakurai can just say no, because all that's riding on this is a single character.
Also, MvC is microscopic compared to the MCU, so Capcom has a lot more to gain and a lot more to lose than Disney does. Disney knew this, which is why they kept pushing it with the demands. With Smash, this isn't the case, and it's arguably the other way around.
If anything, doesn't this make it the exact same as the MvCI situation, but just reversed? As in, if Disney were to make too many demands about how they want Sora represented (
as they're known to do), Sakurai can just cut them out to prevent something he isn't happy with (
as he is also known to do).
Like I said, Smash Bros. is way bigger than Kingdom Hearts, so having Sora as a playable character would advertise their game to millions of potential new fans. On the other side, having Sora would bring a lot of hype to the existing community, but not that many new customers. Just like how Capcom had way more to gain in MvC than Disney did, now Disney would have more to gain from having Sora in Smash than Nintendo, so I think they'd safe from Disney's bull****.
And just like I have said, why on Earth would Nintendo want this advertising? There's nothing they can gain here.
So was the FF series, especially Cloud.
The Final Fantasy had its roots on Nintendo platforms, being Nintendo exclusive until the PSX era, which is something that Kingdom Hearts cannot claim to have. Alongside this, Cloud is significantly more iconic than Sora is, and represents Square Enix, a company that has had a storied past with Nintendo, through both their Square / Squaresoft years, and their Square Enix years.
In terms of Disney collaborations, Nintendo means nothing. Nintendo made a few Mickey Mouse Game and Watches, published a few of their games over the years, and had Nintendo stuff show up in Wreck-It-Ralph. That's about it. Not really as important as a company that has shown support for nearly four decades now.
Chain of Memories is available on the Playstation 2 (although technically as a remake), and Coded appeared on mobile devices and the Playstation 3. 358/2 Days and Dream Drop Distance are the only true exclusives.
All of them were part of the main canon.
That doesn't chance the fact that they are spin-offs.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is canon in the Star Wars series, but it is still considered a spin-off.
The Ace Attorney Investigations games, where you play as Miles Edgeworth, rather than Phoenix Wright, are canon, but are considered spin-offs.
Blue Bowser has a better chance than Pauline.
I mean, obviously.
He's already in the game.
First off, you must have been living under a rock if you've never heard anyone ask for Sora in Smash Bros."
I've heard a few people ask for the guy during the Smash 4 DLC period, but I've also heard people ask for Love Live characters. There's no way in hell he is the incredibly popular character you're making him to be, unless I really have been living under a rock.
Reddit didn't really want him. 4chan didn't really want him. Japan didn't want him, assuming the Source Gaming polls are somewhat correct. Hell, even his Smash 4 thread here on Smashboards barely got any attention, being beaten out by such "iconic" characters like Kamek in terms of view count, and Ayumi Tachibana in terms of "reply" count.
Really, the only notably thing I COULD find during the SSB4 era of people supporting him
was this YouTube video on the topic from a Kingdom Hearts YouTuber. That's it. Heck, even just typing "smash ballot" into Google, and I'm struggling to see this guy come up. Like, are you sure he was anywhere close to a popular pick?
Like Cloud, he was just a distant dream. Now, the penultimate "never gonna happen" character is in the game and KH3 is actually on its way for real this time, so all the people who want him can seriously campaign for him without people thinking they're idiots.
I feel like there's a pretty big difference between thinking such a controversial character has a shot and thinking such a controversial character has a "100% chance" of getting into Smash.
Basically, Sora in Smash would likely not benefit Disney much, would not benefit Nintendo at all, and would just make them have to do significantly more work to help Sora jump through the hoops that would get him into Smash to make Disney happy, let alone make everyone involved happy. All for a character that is nowhere near a fan favorite.
