Ok sorry for the ultra late update. I just wanted to be a little cautious even though everything I'm about to mention is more or less known or could be inferred by everything we've already learned about Smash development. This was not an interview, I'm not apart of any gaming organization or anything of the sort. It was just 2 Nintendo fans chatting it up and everything I'm about to mention is super simplified from our half hour conversation.So today at the San Diego Comicon I ran into Nintendo Treehouse's JC. Super duper nice guy. You can tell he loves working at Nintendo and is absolutely proud of it. One of the first things I did was tell him to thank Sakurai for Ridley. I mentioned how I am married with children, I mentioned my profession and that I was well adjusted mentally(allegedly). I told him I waited 17 years for Ridley to be playable and I cried real tears of joy during the direct. I showed him the video I posted last month and he sure got a kick out of it. He more or less told me those are the types of reactions he and Sakurai loves from the fans and thats when we got into Ridley discussion.- The Treehouse folks have been very aware of the constant Ridley debates for years. How could they not right?- Treehouse tentacles are all over the net.- Naturally Sakurai gets feedback from Treehouse and wonders who would be a big deal.- Apparently a lot of characters are discussed but even the treehouse guys don't know who ultimately gets picked.- Ridley is brought up as the big deal but over in Japan it's hard for Sakurai and the team to understand, he wants to know why.- People aren't talking about Ridley and Metroid over there like we do.- Metroid doesn't sell so well out there and even over here in the west it doesn't exactly light up the sales charts.- It gets explained that Metroid carries a prestige with it and the fans who love it they really love it.-There were other talks about Sakurai's comments regarding Ridley after Smash 4 released, like the too big stuff but I don't really remember.- Sakurai in the Direct basically said he hopes we don't expect too many newcomers this time around. I'm not quoting JC but man when I heard him say it the way he said it in his own words there was some clear cut weight to the statement.- Balancing all 60+ characters is very difficult and it takes a ton of work. Thats a big reason why there will probably be less newcomers than we are used to.- Getting everyone back was a huge priority.You look at my posts since the Direct I didn't really believe Sakurai and have been thinking 10 total including 2 or 3 echos. Now I'm taking Sakurai's words seriously. I'm just assuming all of this of course.We didn't discuss the possibility of DLC at all but after that exchange my personal guess is the majority of our newcomers will come from DLC.- We talked about what it was like working for Nintendo and that there are certain people who just fit right in with the Nintendo work place culture.- Nintendo is extremely small compared to other developers.- Iwata was very familiar with all of those Treehouse guys and his passing was difficult for everyone. Not just guys sitting at the very top.- I told him Dixie is my final request.Let me think of what else we talked about. The topics of newcomers and Ridley stood out the most by far.Sorry if you expected some major news revelation.