Umm... no. They didn't use that excuse at all for Cloud or Joker. People on the internet did. And it's a dumb excuse.

Take any character of Smash Ultimate. Any. And tell me with a straight face that it doesn't belong to a Nintendo franchise, nor is a gaming icon or doesn't belong to an incredibly popular series. I dare you.

Joker is literally the only one that doesn't fit the roster. Unless Persona 5 comes to the Switch that is.

And please... Cloud existance in all those 5 games is so secondary I'm even surprise you're throwing this at me. Definetley, Cloud is not in Smash because the importance of FF, the history with Nintendl and him being the face of the franchise. No, those are nonesense. They put him in because of two rhythm games where he displays not a single sign of personality, a skin in a wannabe portable MMO and two brief appearances in KH portable spin offs, one of which is the worst game in the series. Yeah, that's why he's in.

About SMT V on PS4/5... I don't care.

I don't get why some are mentioning censorship happening on the Switch version. I also don't get why some people don't believe there will be a Switch version. Portable Persona has always outsold regular ones, do you think Atlus won't take their shot again?

Right, but I'm saying there's no correlation between the main game of the character, and the porting status of said game. Final Fantasy VII was not ported to WiiU in 2014 when Cloud was announced. And in Cloud's trailer, as you probably recall it showed the Final Fantasy VII logo.

So far every character has been on a Nintendo platform in some form. Although I'm sure that has more to do with Nintendo's long console/handheld history, rather than it being a requirement. Judging by Sakurai's words, it's not a requirement. But for those who don't believe him, there is Persona Q2 to fill that quota.

But Atlus have traditionally made a second version of the latest Persona games for the most suitable handheld, so I think chances are good for that to happen.
I just don't agree that Joker's Smash DLC = His main game must come to Switch because of it. Final Fantasy VII did not end up on WiiU, so I'm not sure why some people still think this is the case.
Rather, I think the main decision factors behind whether or not P5 will come to Switch are different. However, this DLC can increase the chances if they haven't already decided to do it. But personally I think it's already in the works.

Yeah, that's what "Not really/guest character" is referring to.
He was an NPC guest character with a small role in Chain of Memories and Coded. And the Rythm spinoff games are even further removed from their origin than Persona Q2, where Joker at least has a leading role in a traditional JRPG.
Though I'm not saying Joker is more or less qualified than Cloud was. Just that if people think a character has to have appeared on a Nintendo system in some way shape or form, despite Sakurai suggesting otherwise, there is Persona Q2.

Not P5 but SMTV, what if Atlus make a ps4 ver too in exchange? PS4 will have censorship with nudity/sexual scenes and likely Switch ver will be the same since Sony will demand Atlus to do that

Wait, can Sony even demand parity between versions? As far as I remember, the censored titles are quite different between the PS4 and the other platforms, why would SMT V be different?

Not P5 but SMTV, what if Atlus make a ps4 ver too in exchange? PS4 will have censorship with nudity/sexual scenes and likely Switch ver will be the same since Sony will demand Atlus to do that

You never know about that, nothing suggest us that Sony can't do it, because if Sony don't ps4 ver will be the worst and can't sell