Thanks for the link! I don't get the impression he wants to exclusively promote Japanese games either - although that column strongly implies a Japenese-centric focus. If I may point out a couple things:
In order to reach the Top 10, you have to reach really high numbers nowadays (sure, those lists are from 2014/15, but I don't see a reason why it's changed massively since). Dark Souls III being a prime example - reaching a lot of people in all three primary regions (Japan / Asia, NA, EU, 3 million in the first month) - but still missing out as Sakurai pointed out. Part of the reason is the general focus on multi-platforms: AFAIK Pokemon ORAS are the only console exclusives in both the 2014 and 2015 lists (Pokemon ORAS has 14 million and still is #9. The bar's that high). And techincally they're two games / versions of the same game. I can see where Sakurai's coming from. but I don't think it's as disasterous as he thinks. A company can still do a lot even with "just" 3 million buying a game. That was Bandai Namco's biggest launch up to that point.
Also, this is something that's not noted often, but regions outside the "primary" ones are also heavily PC-leaning partly due to their respective histories with Internet cafés. And not just in poorer countries like in South East Asia, South Korea has a long history with "PC Bangs" (literally "PC room"). That impacts the lists some too, especially Minecraft's place there. If we're talking worldwide, the "non-primary" regions like Asia outside of Japan, Russia and South America should be counted too. That makes it even harder for any game, Japanese developed or otherwise, to get into the Top 10.
is random, just imagine how Maxwell would play. His moveset potential is nearly endless. Even characters like Dovahkiin don't have nearly as much potential. He can create a hairy yellow pumpkin, or an explosive stupid magnetic acidophilic poster, or an unavoidable lunar cultural fascist bulldozer. Because of how his game works, there are many different ways he could work in Smash, so he could fit any playstyle they wanted him to. They could focus on weapons and make him combo-based. They could focus on adjectives and allow him to buff himself and/or debuff others. He could have something like Command Selection where he ends up having more than four special moves. Or, they could make him heavily item-based, allowing to create the items in Smash using his notebook. Scribblenauts is a puzzle game series, which is only represented by one or two Smash characters, so Maxwell would bring more representation to the genre.
