Hiku said:
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This is a long post and you put a lot of effort into it and I appreciate it! I probably should have worded my original post differently as it stated Atlus "has" to give something back to Nintendo. What I meant was: Nintendo's management is involved in the DLC decisions (unlike before, as stated by Sakurai). That implies Nintendo will try to strike deals that go beyond simply putting characters into Smash. So it's likely Nintendo approached Atlus and proposed the deal I mentioned in my last post, as it is mutually beneficial. What I described has been Nintendo's strategy for this generation: Third parties are hesitant to put games on their platform, so Nintendo approaches them and sweetens the deal. This has been their modus operandi for a while now and it has worked with Indie titles and a bunch of bigger third parties.
As for why Atlus didn't put P5 on Switch earlier: Maybe Atlus said "we're not sure whether to port our former PS exclusive series to your platform." And Nintendo replied: "Well, what about we put Joker in Smash to make him more popular among our audience and you port Persona 5 over?" It's quite typical for Nintendo's behaviour during this generation so far. I suspect there is a larger strategy behind this and we'll see this reflected in future Smash DLC announcements.
I don't think we actually disagree much: When I said Atlus "has" to give something back I meant there has to be some kind of bigger deal behind this with Nintendo changing their decision making for Smash DLC, or it wouldn't make sense to put these guys in charge. From personal experience, the exact same business deal can be seen in a completely different light depending on the approach of the people who handle it. You assume I think Nintendo did it the bad way ("you have to put that game on our platform") but I assumed they did it the clever way ("look, we can both benefit from this") - the deal is the exact same in the end, just the approach is different. Of course, this is all speculation: Maybe there will be no P5 on Switch at all! I just think it's more likely than not.
