While IDK if this applies to every time someone talks about their character joining Smash in an interview, from what I recall there's been stuff like:
-Rareware responding to a Banjo Smash tweet with "if that were to happen, we wouldn't be the ones to announce it!"
-Grant Kirkhope misdirecting a Banjo Smash thing with "I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you..."
-Mojang people (?) getting asked about Steve in Smash at a Minecraft convention, even though Steve's been in the negotiations since 2015 or so
-Some SNK person getting asked about who'd he want in Smash and jokingly say a joke SNK character answer or something
Any other examples in Ultimate?
Would Toys for Bob anyway be consulted on Crash's inclusion even if he did take some level of inspiration from Crash 4? Well they're not as intrinsic to the character as Rare was for Banjo, they're not THE team that'd need to be credited as their studio despite not owning the rights like Atlus for Joker, Mojang for Steve, PlatinumGames for Bayonetta and maybe other examples like Camelot for Golden Sun stuff and all the other original game studios listed in the credits like Treasure (Sephiroth may reference FF7 Remake with a taunt but that doesn't mean Square Enix Business Division 1 was specifically mentioned IDK). It begs the question if TFB would even have such a hand in Crash's inclusion even with Crash 4 representation when the marsupial has been the product of 4 different studios' vision in the Activision revival years alone.
Not to mention the guy's just (no disrespect intended) a creative producer at the studio? Could he just know (or lead on) as little as those Mojang guys IF TFB are even in the know in the first place? And simply clarifying that he has no choice in the matter just reminds one of the Rareware statement. It's like of course people are inevitably going to ask industry people about Smash, people asked about Smash those 4 times too and it meant nothing in the end, and for all this talk of "why would he have said anything? why couldn't he kept his mouth shut and said nothing" or whatever, it's like what else would he say to an inevitable question that doesn't eradicate the existence of a fighter by being asked? No comment? That'd be a little suspect sounding, and from what he said does it really change anything from before? It wasn't even going out of their way to say "no plans at the moment" or "we talked with Nintendo and got no response" but rather "I'm just a creative producer at one of Crash's various recent studios, I have no say or knowhow in the matter, but I can say it'd be cool". Yet people will act like it's the former.
But hey, we may finally find out what the case is in a month anyway, right? So another thing for funsies, would Crash's trailer totally focus on interacting with Sonic and Mario? The thing I wonder is if that kind of 3-way rivalry was also kinda a thing in Japanese territories or not, if that would even have to be asked as the trailer maybe could go a bit more Western with its references kinda like Ridley's "hits the big time!" tagline. I hear Sonic isn't as popular over there despite being their own creation, but wasn't the Saturn bigger over there if anything? Maybe they'd see it as the battle of the polygonal 5th generation of consoles with N64's plumber himself, the company mascot for the Saturn even if he wasn't as prolific on that console as he should have been, and one of, if not also THE popular character of mascot level associated with the console whose company actually isn't officially involved with Smash which may or may not lead to awkward sidestepping around that fact. Everyone's dream mashup!