So I'll say this much about Geno:
I don't think his chances are zero. The only reason I don't think his chances are zero is because I believe Vergeben, and while he doesn't make sense as a choice basically every other possible Square Rep feels like a really dubious choice as well.
A Dragon Quest character is being touted as a likely choice, but I stand by my previous statement that I really doubt it. Dragon Quest is a "literal who" franchise in the west, and I doubt Nintendo want to pick out a character who's going to sell like garbage in most of the world. People like to claim "cross-promotion!", but Nintendo don't even own Dragon Quest. I could see them being willing to sacrifice DLC sales to cross-promote a first-party character they're profiting directly from, but to promote a third-party character from games on their system? Nah.
Sora I think very much fits the bill of a character that would fit right in for Smash, but I do acknowledge the points that adding Sora is advertising a game that's not even coming to a Nintendo platform, and that the licensing hell may turn Nintendo off. Someone pointed out that Ryu, Cloud, and Snake all potentially advertised games that were not coming to a Nintendo console, but that neglects to consider that those selections were made and the licensing was handled purely by Sakurai. Let Nintendo itself make the decisions and they're more likely to consider how selections influence the company as a whole as opposed to just Smash Bros. I don't think Sora is impossible, I just think this creates some obstacles in the way of him being an "obvious choice".
What else do Square have? Not a lot. Every other Final Fantasy character suffers from a lack of iconicism (save perhaps Sephiroth) to pull in sales, or the same problem as Sora of not even hailing from a game on a Nintendo platform. Same goes for Lara Croft (who I suspect Sakurai would also reject as infeasible due to his gun rules). Most of their other characters are simply not popular enough to justify dealing with licensing and sharing DLC sales.
That said, where does this leave Geno? Geno has a couple of things in his favor. For one, I really doubt Sakurai was completely excluded from decision making. Nintendo may have compiled the list on their own, but I think it's likely Sakurai had some voice and input in the discussion. Between that and their access to the ballot, the fan demand is surely noted. Geno is also relatively easy to license from Square since there's no other companies involved, and they've already gotten the rights to his likeness once. Geno has a sizable and vocal fanbase who would drum up excitement and hype and possibly get people who don't know about the character excited to buy him.
But his boons pretty much end there. And then reality sets in: If they want to hit fan favorites, why Geno? Sure, he's popular within the Smash fanbase. But even if they were going for a character popular in the Smash fanbase, there are easier choices to pull from the ballot. Bandana Waddle Dee is projected to have done super well in Japan and decently in the states. That's a modern character that is still receiving games (and thus promotes for them), and has no licensing weight attached to it. Why in the world would Nintendo pick the puppet over a character like that? And he's not the only one. I'm sure they have at least a dozen solid choices from the ballot that are easier to implement and with more benefit than Geno.
So yeah, I don't think Geno has hit 0% yet simply because I think the alternatives for a "Square Rep" have some pretty solid arguments against them on their own. But the arguments against Geno are potentially stronger than any of them, so I wouldn't get too hopeful.
