If FP#5 is announced at the Game Awards then that makes me think it'll be a character with international appeal, with an UT rep as a likely possibility. Last year Vergeben and other leakers thought the first DLC was going to be a Square/Dragon Quest rep, but it ended up being Joker. A working theory is that Joker was swapped into that slot at the last second (hence no Joker gameplay footage), possibly due to Persona 5 having more western appeal than DQ and the awards being held in America. (1/2)
yeah, this all makes sense for making UT rep a possibility, but i’d like to add something important: it wasn’t Sakurai’s idea to reveal Joker at the Game Awards.
https://news.gvgmall.com/2018/12/26/sakurai-talks-about-jokers-reveal-into-super-smash-bros-ultimate/
At first I got contacted by Nintendo that they want to reveal [P5 Joker in Smash] at TGA. He hadn’t been produced at that time so we used anime as presentation. We had some hardships on scheduling with the voice actors.
so yeah, this is why he had no gameplay footage, and it was also why there was such a huge gap between his announcement and release, he simply wasn’t ready yet. so i honestly don’t think he was simply swapped into that slot? his unexpected nature, i think, could also be chalked up to everyone keeping it under wraps better. also, there were some codenames datamined from SSBU early on, “jack” and “yuusha” (in that order), which are Joker and Hero respectively, so i rthink it was always the planned order of release.
your point about the Hero and Banjo-Kazooie makes sense, i think. but also with the timeliness of Banjo’s release and Terry’s announcement and release, and how it seems that Sakurai really is leading the whole DLC business (like how he talked about dealing with SNK for their songs), i honestly don’t think FP#5 will be announced at the Game Awards, probably at an earlier Direct. maybe FP#1 in Fighters Pass 2 will be announced there, though…?
i’d also like to add that UT doesn’t just have western popularity, it’s plenty popular in Japan as well, especially, i think, compared to a lot of the speculated/wanted western reps. however, i totally agree with your point about a UT rep being more likely with all those western fanbase-wanted reps being deconfirmed, because honestly it takes a LOT out of UT’s way.
