Nintendo VS Sakurai: Who Really Chooses Smash Bros DLC Fighters?
Channel: Video Game Story Time
Date: 24/04/2019

This video is absolutely a response to the lively debate generated by last week's video about Joker in Smash.

We were pleasantly surprised to see just how much discussion the video created. You could say we *never saw it coming*!

A common response to the video was the question of who actually calls the shots on DLC characters in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Sakurai has stated that he doesn't get final say on which fighters get chosen by his overseers at Nintendo (although he may have partially said this to try and get people to stop hounding him with suggestions).

Poor guy, he's clearly very sick of requests for characters in the game. Not that we've helped matters with our previous video about Waluigi...

So with Sakurai trying desperately to pass the buck to Nintendo, we thought it would be useful to compile a collection of quotes about the way these characters are chosen, and who calls the shots. Unsurpisingly, it seems that these decisions were made in collaboration between Sakurai, his team at Sora Ltd, third-party developers, and developers at Nintendo.

So in the case of Joker, Masahiro Sakurai wanted to include him because he likes the character, and Nintendo likely selected him based at least in part on Sakurai's pitch. This is speculation, but all these quotes do point to Sakurai being the driving force.

So how does this affect what characters might be announced in future, and what other games might be on the horizon, such as Persona 5S?

Well, rather frustratingly, we'll probably have to wait and see. Special shout-out to everyone who's watching this after Persona 5S has been announced, enjoying the benefit of hindsight. Hopefully this video is still a useful resource even after the announcement.

And for those who recently saw Sakurai tweet about Chrono Trigger and assumed it's a hint at an upcoming Smash DLC fighter? Maybe don't get your hopes up. The guy plays a lot of games. But again, hindsight will be fun once the next fighter is actually announced.

Lots of love,
BretonStripes (http://twitter.com/bretonstriped) and Kotor (http://twitter.com/kotorcomics)

"Style Funk" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Sources:
https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/12/07/nintendo-persona-5s-joker-is-emblematic-of-smash-bros-ultimates-dlc-approach

https://twitter.com/Sora_Sakurai/status/1059958604818657282

https://twitter.com/Sora_Sakurai/status/1059958663316615168

https://gnn.gamer.com.tw/1/177691.html

https://personacentral.com/atlus-interview-joker-smash-p3-p4-projects-future/

https://gamingbolt.com/super-smash-bros-ultimate-director-talks-about-making-third-party-charactersn-fit-in

https://www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/gaming/edge-magazine-back-issues/edge-xmas-2018-issue-326/