So I would like to survey about third-parties to get some different perspectives:
1. Do you think all of the third-parties will be heavily determined by ballot results?
2. Do you think there will be special cases for third-parties to where demand is not a factor, such as Sakurai possibly working with Bandai Namco to negotiate a character like Heihachi?
3. In your opinion what are the chances of Smash Switch getting a Western third-party?
4. Is there a chance we will be seeing 3+ third-parties for this new Smash Switch game?
5. Which third-parties do you feel are in the brink of getting cut?
I would appreciate in-depth answers.
1. I’d say a mix of that and how iconic they are. There’s not really any big name mega icons left (Sonic, Pac-Man, and even Mega Man to an extent), so now it’s just big names in the gaming community (Ryu, Cloud).
Some that come to mind are Rayman, Banjo, and Crash. None of them are THAT influential to gaming as a whole, so it’s really up to popularity, and honestly I’m not sure if we’re getting a new third party at all. If we don’t see one at E3 I’m going to say we’re not getting one.
2. Where demand is not a factor? No way. Where demand is less of a factor? Maybe. The big one I see for this is Rayman. Rayman doesn’t have a HUGE support-base like Mega Man did, but Ubisoft and Nintendo are so close now that I could see it happening.
Although a Snake-Kojima thing could happen, with a buddy of Sakurai begging for his character to be put in the game, but we have no clue.
3. If we get a new third party at all, likely. The bigger and more popular names in recent conversation have been western IPs. Rayman, Banjo, Crash. I don’t think Crash will be in the base game, because N-Sane Trilogy was slated to be a PS4 exclusive at the time of Smash 5’s development, but may be DLC. Rayman is one of the most likely due to Ubisoft’s ties with Nintendo. Banjo actually has a chance because Phil Spencer would like to see him in and he’s pretty popular. Honestly, if Banjo was owned by Capcom or some other company that isn’t a direct competitor to Nintendo, I think more people would be vocal about wanting him. I feel like a lot of people would love him but just don’t say anything because it seems so unlikely. The same thing happened to Crash where he seemed really unlikely, and now his popularity blew up since he’s coming to Switch.
4. No. Not in the base game at least. Might be a coincidence, but I think Sakurai does like the rule of two per base game. I’m seeing two in the base game, and at least one more (Crash) in DLC, due to his popularity booming in March, when the roster was already probably long decided.
5. Cloud is really the only ones. Sakurai has said he sees Sonic, Mega Man, and Pac-Man as icons of gaming that deserve to be in Smash. It seems he thinks the same of Ryu, who’s game is incredibly influential to the fighting game genre Smash is a part of. Bayonetta was not only voted in by fans (meaning it’d be a middle finger to cut her next game), but is only a non-Nintendo character in legal terms. Cloud on the other hand is a character mostly associated with Sony, and is owned by a company that can be kind of stingy with their copyright policies. If Square-Enix puts up a big fine to have him in Smash 5, I don’t see Sakurai putting up too much of a fight.