I honestly would rather he just did another project. Not only is it hard to top Smash now, but it's getting a little ... well ... tired.

I hate to say it, but I might actually agree with this.

Although ... I would like an actual campaign in the next entry, one that's better than the one in Ultimate ... but I don't know how they'd juggle that. It would definitely sell me on the game though. 

They can add characters from their games that are not in smash, and a story mode can come back.

OP: 70 plus characters is a lot so I understand if they trim it down.

As long as they only cut the crap characters (game & watch, R.O.B, wii fit trainer, piranha plant, jigglypuff etc) then i haven't got a problem just don't leave out the kick ass ones.

It's sad, I just know they're gonna cut Pichu again :'(
If they add Crash and a Tekken rep this will take the cake as the best Smash bros. for me for years to come.

Not sure if this is what I was thinking of: http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2014/12/masahiro_sakurai_admits_that_super_smash_bros_for_wii_u_may_be_his_last_in_the_series

But he says there: "In terms of scope, and in terms of sheer number of characters, we went beyond our limits long ago."

Though regardless that whole article gets at my point.

I agree with you but I don't think they really view singleplayer as a priority ... so if that ends up being the case I would say it'll probably be a little tired, at least for me, though I'll admit having to unlock all the character was fun and contributed to most of my play time. 

Obviously the roster cannot grow forever. It seems to me that it would be reasonable to cut the starting roster to something like 30-36 characters, then add some through DLC, maybe getting up to 50-60 over 12-18 months of updates. That's still a huge lineup.

The problem, of course, is that people always expect the next game in any series to be bigger than the last. Ninty will just have to suck it up and take that PR hit at some point.

This was obvious, the amount of work and licensing needed to keep everything, while adding more each game would be unrealistic to expect. It's disappointing of course. I'm glad that Ultimate is set to get more DLC and personally, I would be fine with them continuing support for Ultimate and putting future Smash games on the back burner. I don't really want another for a long time. However, I also realise that continued support at the expense of a new game might not make financial sense for Nintendo.

You mean a bunch of stuff they did already? Smash Bros in its current form is definitely tired and no amount of characters or stages are going to fix that.

I think we are ready for a 3D Smash bros personally.