The DanMan

Okay, I forgot Zero Mission. But notice that streak there of Prime 2, Prime Pinball, Prime Hunters, and Prime 3? It's almost like the Prime games and name got the biggest push. And as I said, spinoffs still bore the Prime name. Plus (something you even remarked), the only 2D titles to release since Prime 1/Fusion are remakes of the first two games in the series. While Other M is it's divisive oddball self (and oh look, when it came time for a spinoff again guess what style they chose to base things off of and name they used). Even though I got a couple details wrong, I'm not sure why it's being argued that the Prime games have handily supplanted/replaced what the general gaming public thinks of and comes to expect out of Metroid; why would Prime 4 even be a thing if that wasn't the case?

...Except it has been for nearly 20 years? All the spinoffs bore the Prime name-- Hunters, Federation Force, hell remember Prime Pinball? The only Metroid games released since Prime 1 that haven't had the Prime name are the divisive Other M and Samus Returns.

In case anybody was expecting Prime 4 to get anything in DLC: ...Development is starting over from scratch and shifting over to Retro (from the vague "new dev team" which several insiders claimed was Namco).

Zelda has a giant spotlight when it comes to everything but characters-- stages and items aplenty. I think it's a combination of LoZ not being quite as iconic in Japan and Nintendo seeing little reason to promote it.

Considering Smash 4's DLC newcomers, people should be expecting DLC to be mostly 3rd party. It being entirely 3rd party is perfectly within the realm of reasonableness. That said, I do personally believe that there is at least one first party character-- due to the fact that the character selection wasn't fully decided until after the game went gold and we got the November direct. Could just be a 3rd party cutting it close, though.

The tweet only says: "Xenoblade 2 and ARMs characters just had bad timing for the project plan." That said, considering several factors (Smash 4's DLC newcomers, what we know of Ultimate's DLC, the likelyhood of Spirits/ATs/etc. deconfirming characters) I'd say most realistically weren't expecting any non-marketing based 1st parties to begin with.

It would have to be 2020 if not later; IS needs popularity poll data for 3 Houses, after all.

Earthbound's the most niche series in Smash-- I'd say that's more a testament to how little Nintendo cares about it (especially telling that Lucas was cut in the transition between Brawl and Smash 4, only being brought back as DLC) than any sort of future plans. Just because Spirits deconfirm characters doesn't mean a character lacking a Spirit means anything much.

I do wish they'd kept the TP designs around for the Triforce trio, since I like them the most by far (especially with all the little details, like the fact Link's wearing chainmail underneath his tunic).

FYI, the whole DLC character "list" is unrelated to the other JP forum post that called a Granblue Fighting Game as well as Joker and the other datamined character in Smash; people have been conflating the two, which is how it's spread. Considering how heavily rumored the other character has been, it doesn't really have much going for it-- just piggybacking.

Oh right, forgot he was in DOA... somehow. My point still kinda stands in that his own series is dormant right now, which has kept him out of the spotlight.

That's the thing. He has legacy and isn't completely dead, but the Ninja Gaiden name hasn't been attached to anything for the past half decade-- with WO3U and All-Stars being his only notable appearances since Razor's Edge.

The "Smash fanbase" is as vocal as it is overall miniscule; Minecraft obliterates Banjo in every quantifiable metric. Going back a bit, Cloud was considered a stupid meme character with no chances, yet look at what happened? Caused a big uproar that ended up dissipating because, what do you know, a whole lot of people were actually fine with his inclusion. Most of the hardcore fans already bought the fighter pass, so why even waste resources pandering to them? Going for mass appeal characters/characters that would appeal to different fandoms and niches makes infinitely more sense than trying secure the dream materials of a vocal group of 90's kids who already paid up.

Hayabusa's the one that sticks out personally, because every other character has marketing connotations (Joker has Q2 and maybe a P5 rerelease, DQXI's launching on Switch this year, Minecraft is available on Switch and is in general the second biggest individual game in existence behind only Tetris, and Bethesda's struck up a bit of a relationship with Nintendo to the point that Doom Eternal is launching on the Switch alongside everything else). So you go from recent and/or marketable picks to a character who hasn't had a game in years. ...Either this was a favor to KT or Ninja Gaiden is getting something. Either way, from that perspective he feels a bit odd.

They didn't have him in a presentable state for the VGAs; that doesn't mean they didn't start on him yet. Multiple different dataminers have put out there; there's code for "Plant" and "Jack" in the game-- including landing lag, weight, speed, etc, heck even minutae like if they can wall jump (Joker can) and have rapid jabs (both do) . As well as our spoiler character with the same data. Plus, remember: the majority of Smash 4's DLC characters were released alongside another one. June had the triple whammy of Lucas, Roy, and Ryu, while Bayonetta and Corrin both launched in February. I don't think it's unreasonable that Joker and the one we aren't supposed to know about yet could be launching at the same time.

The game itself was planned to launch in September 2016 with only a bit over a year of dev time; it was always planned to be quick and dirty.

We don't know how often Ridley was considered-- and either way, he's an incredibly special case as he was the single most requested fighter for a decade+. For every Villager and Pac-Man there's a Dixie, Excite Biker, and Takamaru; a character being rejected makes us aware that they didn't make it in before and a few have been revisited, but a lot of the time they just never make it in. Riiiight, and according to Sakurai the rest of Smash 4's DLC after Roy, Ryu, and Lucas would be "fanservice": https://sourcegaming.wordpress.com/2015/06/25/ryu-roy-and-lucas-join-the-battle-sakurai-famitsu-column-vol-481/ "From now until the end, it is going to be fan service " ...Which is why only 1/3 of the character picks were fanservice, with two marketing choices (one of which was added under the blatantly false pretense of having won the Smash Ballot). You're taking PR way too seriously and projecting onto it. It was said at the VGA for as broad an audience as possible; he was just reaffiriming that all the DLC characters would be newcomers.

I do think if we get a Namco character it'll be Yuri, easily. Vesperia Definitive gives him recency and marketability while also being so popular among the Tales fandom he got retired from official polls due to always getting #1. The people who want Lloyd are probably the same people who want pre-VII FF characters. Heihachi himself is in an awkward spot, as he was a rejected fighter from Smash 4 and Pac-Man has a sprite of him now in Ultimate.

Because of her butt. Seriously, the only reason she seems to be popular is because of "thicc" jokes. Female characters always end up disproportionately popular compared to the male ones in larger casts; FEH's CYL polls show that quite well, with the female side always having higher average votes per spot than the male side. Heck, Celica being more popular than Alm despite not being the main protagonist and basically irrelevant to the overall plot (while acting idiotic and putting herself in a damsel in distress position) is a perfect example. Pichu actually does more damage than Pikachu; I'd imagine that plays a large part in it. Of course, something to keep in mind is that tier lists are always partially usage lists; Pokemon Trainer probably hasn't received much usage in Japan, and thus is rated lower because of it.

The only FE character to overall be nerfed (only thing that got buffed was their up-air IIRC, which itself was just reverting to how it was before it was nerfed in Smash 4), if I recall correctly.

They're the main antagonists for the entire series, so...

Legendary Spirit Battles are against high-level AI; Corrin as a fighter is inoffensive.

I could imagine it just shooting a charged beam of darkness or something and only being used as his neutral special or something. Anyways, I sincerely doubt he'll do any sort of Persona switching-- Yu in Arena exclusively sticks to Izanagi, so I'm not expecting anything other than Arsene to show up in his moveset.