Or possibly both.

We've now had iterations of Smash on five straight home consoles and the 3DS.  Smash Ultimate has reached what could easily be considered a plateau for the series with a roster that will be pushing 90 characters and highly refined gameplay.  So the question becomes, do they even bother to try to top it again in about 4 years?

Smash Ultimate: Deluxe could be the Mario Kart 8: Deluxe of the next generation.  A game that's just so well designed from the previous generation that it could go on sale at or near launch and be a perennial seller throughout the console's lifespan.  Just give it a few modest upgrades and dump (most of) the DLC on the players' heads.  They might lose a 3rd-party fighter or two (though good luck to the PR department that has to explain why Cloud's no longer in Smash) and probably several Mii costumes, but that shouldn't hurt sales much, if at all.

On the other hand, there's the possibility of a new Smash, which is a game that can anchor any holiday schedule and galvanize the whole Nintendo community.  A new game is generally preferable to a legacy game.  Mario Kart 8: Deluxe is a bit of an outlier due to it appearing on a failed system.  Smash Ultimate doesn't have that problem (opportunity?).  It's already the best-selling game of the series by a significant margin and it will presumably continue to sell millions every year until the Switch is replaced.  Would Nintendo fans be willing to go over a decade without a new game in the series?

And, of course, there is one other wild card beyond what Nintendo would want.  Sakurai.  Few, if any game series are as linked to a single vision as Smash.  He's still a young man, but he's been making Smash games for over two decades at this point and really has only been able to take a break from the series twice (after Melee and after Brawl) in all those years.  The guy not only deserves a break, but we deserve to see him spread his wings and work on some other projects to keep him interested.  Furthermore, he might just not want to do it.  By the time he finishes working on the DLC, Ultimate will have been out for a solid 3 years already and will have been working on Smash since roughly when Kid Icarus: Uprising was released in 2012.

Myself, I personally do think that Smash will be put on hiatus for several years after the DLC is finished.  As such, I believe a Smash Ultimate: Deluxe release soon after the Switch 2's launch is almost inevitable.  Pair it with a launch of Mario Kart 9 and the system will already have a strong launch window with two evergreen games that will continue to soak in sales for years.

The question then becomes whether the series will receive a new game sometime in the mid- to late-cycle, or will it skip to the Switch 3 (if such a thing exists as the industry might well have a paradigm shift soon)?  For that, I'm not so sure about the answer.  A secondary question would be if Sakurai would jump in and add another Fighters pass to the Deluxe version (maybe backwards to the current as well) without jumping into fully developing a new game.  That would certainly hold the game over for another few years.

Anyway, what do you think?  My own view is that I wish Sakurai the best, so he takes as much time as he wishes to scratch whatever other artistic itch he has so he can come back fully prepared for one final go making a Smash game.  And, since I wish it, I'll go ahead and predict it.

*Note:  I know some people call the current game Smash 6 because of the 3DS game.  If you want to call the next game Smash 7, go for it, just do me a favor and don't derail the thread.  Okay?  Okay.

I can't see Sakurai willing to have another go at Smash too soon, so I'd say a Smash Ultimate port for next gen is possible. The thing is, Sakurai always talks about how hard it would be to get all these characters into a single game again, that it'd probably be impossible, but... I'm pretty sure the same would apply to a port. They would still have to chase after all these copyrights from all these companies, so from that point of view, making a whole new game would be a better business strategy (like, if they have to cut characters from the roster, it's better to say HERE'S A NEW GAME!! than "Here's Smash Ultimate, but now with missing content").

I do think the port is more likely, though, and possibly the better choice. I have quite a lot of issues with how Smash Ultimate is as a game, mostly regarding the awful way they've done the balance patches, but at the end of the day it's still the best Smash for casual play (by a country mile) and maybe the best competitively. It's also doing crazy numbers, so, there's that I guess.

Didn't Sakurai said that a next Super Smash Bros. game would not have as many characters as Ultimate?

Sakurai also said that Melee would be his last Smash game. And then he said the same for Brawl, and again for Smash 4. So, yeah.

But I don't think that's down to Sakurai being a liar, just moreso him playing it safe with regards to the future. It's not impossible for the next Smash game to have more characters than Ultimate, Sakurai just says it is because he knows how difficult it is to get all these copyrights and stuff from the other companies. Basically he doesn't wanna go through that again, and he knows it's not guaranteed to work like it did for Ultimate, which is why he says it's impossible.

No to smash ultimate port, that's an awful idea. It's not the same as MK8D at all. MK got ported because nobody freaking bought the Wii U so Nintendo had a whole library of games that hardly anyone played. Obviously not the same situation with Smash Ultimate and the Switch in general. Also assuming Switch 2 is backwards compatible porting it would make even less sense. They aren't gonna port a Smash game the everyone already bought, that'd sell a fraction of the amount that actually making a new game would sell. Not sure why anyone would want them to just port old games instead of, ya know, actually making new games!

I have no idea where they are gonna take Smash from here on out, as Ultimate was kinda like well, the ultimate Smash, but porting Ultimate doesn't make any sense at all.

Thing is. No matter which route they take, there’s no way they’ll be able to get ALL of the characters back. When you reach the absolute pinnacle in terms of roster size and the insane cast of characters, the other edge of that sword is that for the next game, there’s nowhere to go but down.

Obviously, Nintendo can get all their 1st party characters back if they want to, and some 3rd party characters that should be easy for them like Sonic, Bayonetta, Mega Man, and Pac-Man. I have a difficult time seeing how they’ll be able to get guys like Cloud, Snake, Joker, Terry Bogard, and Simon Belmont again.

I think the best route to take would be to do a Smash 6. And then cap the roster size to a certain limit. Say, 50-60. And then you could still do the fighter passes for DLC to bring it up to 60-70.

The problem with this is that some characters are obviously going to get cut, which, no matter which way you slice it, is going to piss off a lot of people. But honestly, I think it’d be for the best.

The problem with having a roster that is getting as massive as Ultimate is, proper balancing and fine-tuning is damn near impossible and you have characters that all just blend in together (Looking at YOU Fire Emblem!) Or characters that are insanely broken or absolutely worthless.

So they should cap the roster size to a certain amount and be more picky with their characters based on what games could be promoted, what will lead to the best marketing opportunities, and what will drive insane hype among fans.

For example: In this scenario, characters like Ice Climbers, R.O.B., Duck Hunt, Wii Fit Trainer, and Mr. Game and Watch, gotta go. These people haven’t had a game and haven’t been relevant in years, decades even, and no fans, save for a very small minority are pining for them. So, they gotta get the axe.

I think the original roster from Smash 64 should stay, no matter what. The “Core 12” I like to call them.

Some franchises with a large number of representatives can afford to be cut down a bit, ESPECIALLY Fire Emblem and Pokémon. Marth and Pikachu can stay because they’re the faces of their respective franchises, and Pikachu is one of the original fighters, along with Jigglypuff. But characters like Chrom, Roy, Ike, Corrin, Robin, Byleth, Pichu, Lucario, and Greninja? Gotta go. The reps from those franchises should basically be the franchise cornerstones (Marth for FE; Pikachu and Jigglypuff for Pokémon) and reps from the latest games in their franchises (Fire Emblem for Switch 2 and Pokémon Gen 10/11.)

Same for Mario and Zelda. Obviously, Mario, Luigi, Bowser, Peach, Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf should stick around. But we can do without Bowser Jr., Rosalina and Luma, Dr. Mario, Piranha Plant, Sheik, Toon Link, and Young Link. Instead, give some of those slots to characters from the new Mario and Zelda games for Switch 2.

And when negotiating with 3rd parties, that’s where discussing characters popular with fans should be taken more into account. The chances of getting Cloud back are about slim to none. But how about Geno this time? Or someone from Chrono Trigger? And then maybe the new protagonist/Hero for Dragon Quest XII or Bravely Default 3, or Octopath 2, or whatever new game Nintendo and Square Enix collaborate on.

It’s good to be hopeful, but we also gotta be realistic. What Sakurai has been able to do with Smash Ultimate will NEVER be topped. Ever. From this point on, I think the series will focus more on the specific era or generation it was released, which characters are popular within that gen, and making use of new modes and mechanics, in addition to the different cast of characters, to make each game stand out from the rest.

Ultimate means final. So unless it's just a name. Might be the final game. At least what we know as Smash. Sakurai is unloading on this game with spirits and DLC characters. Maybe this is his magnum opus. Seeing how it sells maybe Nintendo continues but maybe Sakurai finally steps away before he dies.

GameCube was a big leap forward graphically, Wii was small. Wii U was big leap forward again, Switch was small. Based on these, I think Switch 2 will be a large enough leap forward that a smash Ultimate port will look quite aged, so I predict Smash 6. But I think Smash 6 will go back to having smaller roster based on the core and most relevant characters around time of release. A smaller roster will allow more resources to go into engine, new modes, vastly improved internet connectivity, features, and hopefully a deep story/CGI driven campaign mode.

I don’t think next console will get another smash bros

Smash 6

They already said right at the beginning that Ultimate had an unique opportunity to bring back everyone which will certainly not happen again so easily. As a result, I expect the number of fighter to drop to around 50 including Echo Fighters before DLC. Similar stuff is going to happen to stages, music and Mii costumes (if the Miis come back in the first place, that is).

In other words, it won't be possible to make another Ultimate version, so they'll have to settle it in Smash with a 6