Super Smash Squids? They might have found a way to make Super Mario Paintball after all with that...

You can create your own character in Splatoon right? I could see it. They could even offer things like a Mario stage, Zelda stage, etc. as DLC on top of that. 

It would help Splatoon sales too. 

It's not a bad idea to be honest if they don't have an Amiibo specific title for 2015. If people who bought Marth, Samus, Pitt, etc. are just having those figures collect dust 8 months after Smash Bros, that's not a good situation, people will sour on Amiibos quickly in that case. Imagine Sonic and Megaman in Splatoon too ... hoo boy. 

Redefines the meaning of P-Shooter.

They'd need to be careful. I don't see characters like Marth fitting into something like Splatoon.

Well I dunno, is it really any stranger than this:

I think Diddy Kong, Donkey Kong, Mario (w/FLUDD), Luigi, Link, Zelda, Peach, Fox, Falcon, Pitt, Megaman, Sonic, Bowser, Yoshi, Kirby would work. 

Some might be weird like Wii Fit Trainer, lol. 

If Yoshi is still 1st half, why are they being so coy with a release window, and why didn't they even mention it in the last Direct? Stop torturing us, Nintendo!

I think it's a little different. Mario Kart is still a franchise that lends itself to collabs, and the only way it even made sence in that universe was from being DLC. Splatoom doesn't. Its a more self contained IP. I can see FE clothing and such, but running around that world as porportunate humans would be pushing it.

They should release Yoshi on April for EU and NA, when they release Xenoblade on Japan.

I completely agree. It would fill in that month for those regions and prevent a small drought. In fact, I think Yoshi isn't releasing in Japan during that time because Nintendo doesn't want it competing with Xenoblade.

Since their Direct covered titles from Feb to May, doesn't it stand to reason that Yoshi will be in June?

There's also the possibility that they didn't want to spend too much time on Wii U titles, since it was mainly a 3DS-focused direct and they only wanted to pay attention to games that were either releasing really soon (Kirby, Mario Party) or had significant updates (Xenoblade, Splatoon). Although Yoshi releasing in June would make just as much sense, honestly. 

Either way, I won't mind. It'd be nice to have a game come out during the summer, but it'd also be nice to get a steady stream of titles once Kirby hits.