Topic: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

@StephanDLW 10m sales for a series with 30 releases (that had its first ports only on Playstation 2) isn't nearly enough (despite 3 Donkey Konga spin-offs coming out later on the Gamecube) when Bandai Namco has popular franchises like Tales of... (20m), Tekken (47m), and SoulCalibur (13m). And since the Tales of...-series started on Nintendo, is hugely popular in Japan (almost like Dragon Quest), and Lloyd Irving was a costume in Smash 4 (alongside Heihachi), we practically know what to expect next.
OR - since Namco has Pac-Man already in, it will be Bandai's turn next. Tamagotchi! You heard it here first.

I'm still rooting for Agumon if we're going to get a Bandai rep, we need that Pikachu vs Agumon 90s fight to happen. And while he's not my favorite Digimon, no one can argue he doesn't deserve the slot most out of anyone in the franchise.

@link3710 Agumon is really iconic. For being another case of ''Here's the soulless Playstation clone of something we stole from Nintendo''.

I'm honest though, if we look at Bandai Namco - maybe not from a Smash Bros. viewpoint, but from a Mario Kart perspective - then you probably know that Pac-Man, along with 2 other characters from the Pac-Man universe were the first Bandai-Namco characters in Mario Kart Arcade GP.
Do you know who came after Pac-Man? Hint: It wasn't Agumon.

If it does end up being Ryu Hayabusa, I could see him being announced at the Game Awards alongside Ninja Gaiden reboot trilogy (Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, Ninja Gaiden 3 Razor's Edge) coming to PS4, XB1 and Switch. The NES games are on NSO so I doubt a collection for the original trilogy would happen for modern consoles (collections means no NSO support).

@Grumblevolcano
River City Ransom and Super Dodge Ball were both in the Kunio-Kun collection on Switch along with being on the NES Online.

We’ll go with 10 each for now then.

@Grumblevolcano Even though I never liked the Ninja Gaiden series for it's difficulty, it's a NES original, that's still alive and popular enough, and maybe KOEI TECMO's most eligible contestant, since Mio & Mayu Amakura and Yuri Kozukata from the Project Zero / Fatal Frame series are deconfirmed (Assist Trophy & Spirits).

@Galarian_Lassie Kunio-Kun is very iconic with great games and cult hits such as River City Ransom and Super Dodge Ball, and Renegade (which lead to another popular series called Double Dragon). After many NES releases Kunio crossed paths with Nintendo when Nintendo made one of the Kunio-Kun games their own with 'Nintendo World Cup' (NES, 1990). Unfortunately Nintendo never re-released it on Virtual Console or anything. TECHNOS JAPAN / ARC SYSTEM WORKS putting in a Kunio-Kun style rep into Smash would be hilarious. But man these characters animations are just too good to miss. I hope the series is big enough to have a chance, most games in the series were never released in the West.

@DarthNocturnal Even though Digimon is a sequel or spiritual successor to Tamagotchi, it was seen as a knock-off and rival to Pokémon, having even -mon in the title.
Tamagotchi sold 75 million and the first console releases were on Game Boy, then Nintendo 64.
Do you have some sales numbers for Digimon? That series launched their first 6 console games exclusively on Sony PlayStation.
The point is, Nintendo and Bandai Namco decided to have Pac-Man and Tamagotchi Mametchi in Mario Kart and not Pac-Man and Digimon Agumon.

Scores so far:
37pts. Rex & Pyra/Mythra (Xenoblade Chronicles 2) +5 10 10 10 +2
32pts. Skull Kid (The Legend of Zelda) +8 10 10 +4
29pts. Midna (The Legend of Zelda) +1 10 +3 10 +5
28pts. Isaac (Golden Sun) +1 +2 +5 10 10
27pts. Elma (Xenoblade Chronicles X) +6 +1 10 10
25pts. Chibi-Robo (Chibi-Robo!) 10 +5 +5 +5
24pts. Impa (The Legend of Zelda) 10 10 +4
22pts. Dixie Kong (Donkey Kong) +2 +5 10 +5
16pts. Geno (Super Mario RPG) +1 +5 10
15pts. Cranky Kong (Donkey Kong) +5 10
15pts. Funky Kong (Donkey Kong) 10 +5
13pts. Takamaru (The Mysterious Murasame Castle) +1 +5 +5 +2
13pts. Waluigi (Super Mario) +1 +5 +7
12pts. Paper Mario (Paper Mario) +7 +5
10pts. Ashley & Red (WarioWare) 10
10pts. K. K. Slider (Animal Crossing) 10
10pts. Mike Jones (StarTropics) 10
10pts. Toad (Super Mario) +5 +5
9pts. Edelgard (Fire Emblem) +9
8pts. Starfy (The Legendary Starfy) +1 +5 +2
7pts. Saki Amamiya (Sin and Punishment) +6 +1
6pts. Octoling (Splatoon) +6
5pts. Bandana Waddle Dee (Kirby) +5
5pts. Spring Man / Ribbon Girl (ARMS) +5
4pts. Kyle Hyde (Hotel Dusk) +1 +3
3pts. Alexandra Roivas (Eternal Darkness) +3
3pts. Jill (Drill Dozer) +3
3pts. John Raimi (Geist) +3
2pts. Dillon (Dillon's Rolling Western) +2
2pts. Porky (EarthBound) +2
1pt. Andy (Advance Wars) +1
1pt. Black Shadow (F-ZERO) +1
1pt. Kamek (Yoshi) +1
1pt. Mallo (Pullblox) +1
1pt. Ricky Winterborn (1080° / Wave Race) +1
0pts. Birdo (Super Mario)
0pts. Chorus Kids / Karate Joe (Rhythm Paradise)
0pts. Doshin (Doshin the Giant)
0pts. Goose (Pilotwings)
0pts. Jumpin' Jim Rivers (Excitebike)
0pts. Krystal (Starfox)
0pts. Oceana Louvier (Endless Ocean)
0pts. Pauline (Super Mario)
0pts. Peppy Hare (Starfox)
0pts. Shy Guy (Super Mario)
0pts. Slippy Toad (Starfox)
0pts. Tingle (The Legend of Zelda)

15 Participants: Arbor, DarkSim01, DarthNocturnal, Diddy64, Dogorilla, Edelgard, Euler, Grumblevolcano, Harmonie, link3710, Nat, Nofina, RR529, SKTTR, StephanDLW

20 points left for: DarthNocturnal, Harmonie

Ryu Hyabusa would be a good Tecmo rep (I'd personally prefer Ayame, but Ryu's the more obvious & likely choice).

If Crash or Spyro get in (and I wouldn't completely rule one of the two out), I think they'd be announced in the middle of the next pack, Banjo-Kazooie style, surrounded by more Japan popular characters on each side.

Namco's next rep is more up in the air with a lot of long running & iconic series like Tales, Tekken, Soulcalibur, Digimon, & Tamagotchi, but I'd personally like them to go a bit out of left field and pick Klonoa.

@SKTTR Woah woah woah, I get that you aren't a Digimon fan, but Digimon predates Pokemon as being a thing, including Agumon. The games far predate Sony, and the games were all multiplatform or Nintendo Exclusive aside form the World 2 & 3 on PS1 and Adventures on the original PSP. Part of the reason you might think that is that Digimon's first full size games were actually on WonderSwan, a japanese only gameboy competitor, and the games only started getting localized in the PS1. Nintendo's had plenty of Digimon exclusives over the years though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_media_...

Also check it, Digimon's slightly higher than Tamagotchi in terms of overall franchise sales. But regardless of that, Mametchi made the most since to add to a Mario Kart game, while Agumon is the better suited of the two for a fighter.

EDIT: Oh and Digimon being a Pokemon ripoff is only a thing in western territories thanks to Digimon getting localized a few months after Pokemon, it's not something that people think in Japan so it is highly unlikely to come into play there.

@DeathNocturnal @link3710 Thanks for clearing up my misconception about Digimon. Indeed Digimon was just seen as copycat in my territory, coming a year after Pokémon, only available on PlayStation for several years, and also having an anime series behind it and -mon in the title. From what I gathered back then (until now), you catch and collect just digitized monsters instead of 'natural monsters' and that's where I lost interest (I'm not a big Pokémon fan either). I know that Digimon has since been on Nintendo like a couple of franchises we talked about earlier (Crash, Spyro) but I didn't know all the backstory to it. But even now, knowing the facts, I still think Tamagotchi wins over Digimon. Digimon is the successor to Tamagotchi while Tamagotchi is the original thing. And Digimon is only so succesful because of its merchandise, not because of its software sales:
Tamagotchi: 2.955b for the virtual pets + 0.154b console game sales.
Digimon: 0.424b for the virtual pets + 0.906b console game sales.
Pokémon: had no virtual pets + 17.138b console game sales.

Only when taking merchandise sales into the equation, that's where things turn around, but only so slightly.
Tamagotchi: 3.081b
Digimon: 5.390b
Pokémon: 64.100b

@RR529 I also think that Ryu Hayabusa is the most likely choice for a KOEI TECMO rep as he's similar to Simon, Mega Man, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, etc. in having such a long history with Nintendo. Other popular KOEI TECMO series such as Dynasty Warriors, Samurai Warriors, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, or Nobunaga's Ambition don't have real video game characters as they're all historical figures.

Sure, KOEI TECMO's creepy horror series Project Zero / Fatal Frame has turned into Nintendo's financed, exclusive horror series flagship title (other contestants such as Eternal Darkness were just a one-off), but since both these series main characters are only ATs and Spirits, the real horror reps can only come from CAPCOM (Resident Evil) or KONAMI (Silent Hill).

So who else than Hayabusa could be a KOEI TECMO rep? Someone from Dead or Alive apparently, but then again, Hayabusa is one of the main characters in that series as well. There's not much choice, is there?
Now that another ninja (my favourite, KONAMI's Goemon) is deconfirmed, how many popular Ninja's are still available?
I know one: Shinobi from SEGA!
Who's better, Hayabusa or Shinobi? I didn't care much for Ninja Gaiden, but I liked the Shinobi games. ^^

@SKTTR We already have a SEGA character in the fighters pass though (Joker), I doubt there'd be multiple characters from the same company in the same pass. Maybe a 2nd SEGA character for pass 2 or later, I could definitely see a 2nd Microsoft character appear in Smash in a different pass for example (Master Chief in particular).

@DarthNocturnal Given what happened with Cloud, Master Chief in Minecraft would be enough to allow him in Smash.

@Grumblevolcano @DarthNocturnal

Yeah, I know. Shinobi (aka Joe Musashi) would be SEGA's fourth Smash character too (after Sonic, Bayonetta and Joker), and there has not been a 3rd party that got a fourth fighter in yet.

Second in line from Microsoft is Minecraft-Steve, he's way more popular than HALO, Ori, Hellblade, and Cuphead combined. It's super-popular in Japan as well and there's a free exclusive Mario Mash-Up Pack in the Wii U and Switch versions of Minecraft, so Minecraft already crossed over with Nintendo and the Super Mario series a couple of years ago. I would not count on anything from Microsoft until Steve is out.
And just like Sega, Microsoft already has a fighter in this DLC (Banjo-Kazooie), so even if Steve is coming, he wouldn't be Fighters Pass challenger number 5. He'd rather be Microsoft's (and Nintendo's) best pick for the second Fighters Pass.

Master Chief's only Nintendo appearance was a blocky DLC skin in the aforementioned Minecraft games.

Final Fantasy on the other hand, is a brand that was born on the NES, had three titles there, then brought over to the SNES and had three of its best games there, and those lead to the success that Final Fantasy VII was. Cloud was in at least 2 Nintendo games prior to his inclusion in Smash (Theatrhythm), granted none of those games were Final Fantasy VII, but he was a character that appeared in a Nintendo game nonetheless, unlike Master Chief. Technically, Cloud existed in Final Fantasy 64 for the Nintendo 64 (there are pictures that show him running on Nintendo's hardware before he turned into a PlayStation game), but that game unfortunately was cancelled.

Maybe Cloud's Smash inclusion secured the deal that we not only got Final Fantasy VII on Switch, but also all the other Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Secret of Mana, Romancing Saga, Tokyo RPG Factory games. It's basically Square Enix supporting Nintendo 100% this generation.

I can't think of Master Chief being in any way comparable to Cloud. Especially when it comes to the ties and history with Nintendo.

@SKTTR I'm looking more on the side of Microsoft regarding Master Chief in Smash, Minecraft is still huge and doesn't need promotion. Meanwhile Halo's popularity dipped in the late 360 era but has been growing back since stuff like the MCC fixes, PC announcements and Infinite news. Halo returning back to Halo 3 era popularity would help Microsoft out a lot. As for this comment:

"Maybe Cloud's Smash inclusion secured the deal that we not only got Final Fantasy VII on Switch, but also all the other Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Secret of Mana, Romancing Saga, Tokyo RPG Factory games. It's basically Square Enix supporting Nintendo 100% this generation."

Maybe Master Chief in Smash could help secure stuff like xCloud and Xbox Game Pass on Switch, that would help Nintendo a lot especially dealing with the inevitable problem of next gen increasing the power gap even further which'll force more 3rd parties to abandon the Switch.

@DarthNocturnal They do to me:

Joker - Persona 5 Royal/Persona 5 Scramble
DQ Hero - Dragon Quest XI S
Banjo - Doesn't seem like a promo character yet
Terry Bogard - The King of Fighters XV

@SKTTR I'm not saying using Smash as a promo tool is the right move, I'm saying Nintendo seems to already be using Smash as a promo tool. This is the key detail, you're saying using Smash as a promo tool is bad while I'm saying it's already happening.

@SKTTR I can at least agree with your reasoning now on Digimon, even if I don't share the opinion. Though, either way, a Bandai rep would be amazing.

I really don't see Master Chief happening until Smash 6. If Microsoft and Nintendo are still getting along then, he's well and truly on the board. Before then, Steve seems likely as part of the second wave.

As for the final member of this wave? Well, I doubt it's Konami (Bomberman most likely and out for the pass), Square Enix, Microsoft, Ubisoft (Rayman is the most likely and out for the pass) or Sega, and it's definitely not SNK. That would leave Bandai Namco, Capcom, Koei Tecmo, Level-5, Bethesda, and Activision-Blizzard as the most likely companies, in that order.

So I'd rank the most likely reps as 1. Heihachi/Tekken/Soul Calibur
2. Lloyd/Tales
3. Mametchi/Agumon
4. Jill / Leon
5. Monster Hunter
6. Dante
7. Ryu Hayubasa
8. Jibanyan
9. Doomguy
10. Dragonborn
11. Crash
12. Spyro
13. Tracer
14. Diablo

The question is, which would be the biggest promo tool(s) on this list

I know not part of the current discussion, but I doubt we'll ever see Sora from Kingdom Hearts.

While he himself originated in games, elements of his design (namely the Mickey keychain on the Kingdom Key, his most iconic weapon) don't. So either they'd have to alter the keychain (maybe replace it with the series' heart shaped logo) or give him another (less iconic) Keyblade. With how much care Sakurai puts into making sure the various guest series are 100% authentically represented, I'm not sure that's a sacrifice they'd be willing to make.

Same thing with spirits. Sure, KH has enough of it's own characters at this point, but would it really be properly represented without Donald & Goofy spirits (which for obvious reasons wouldn't happen)?

Then of course there's the Disney angle itself, and if Nintendo & SE would need them to sign off on it.