At E3 this year Nintendo unveiled two new characters for their hit game Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. To the surprise of fans, the two reveals were Hero from the Dragon Quest series and Banjo-Kazooie. These characters were a welcome sight from both Japanese and western fans as they add more third-party characters to the ever-growing cast.
Many were surprised that Nintendo got access to a Microsoft character, but the harder of the two was strangely not Banjo. Director Masahiro Sakurai was interviewed in a column of the Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu which was translated by the twitter user @PushDustin.
In the early 2000s, Rare was sold to Microsoft, and Banjo's games came out on the Xbox 360. Microsoft and Nintendo are rivals in the console space. It's usually thought that you shouldn't help our your rivals. pic.twitter.com/IUDbbqffs3
— Will (PushDustIn) (@PushDustIn) June 26, 2019
Sakurai discussed the issue behind trying to get Dragon Quest heroes into the Smash Bros. franchise. Square Enix keeps strict rules about how their characters are handled and in what kind of spin-offs they can exist. For Hero to come and join the Smash Bros. fighters, Nintendo had to get special exceptions arranged.
This is not the first time that Square Enix has been hesitant to allow their characters into other games. Even within their spin-off series, Dragon Quest Heroes, the protagonist is not permitted among the playable characters. With the recent release of Kingdom Hearts 3, it was noticed by fans that a majority of the Final Fantasy 7 characters were missing. Strong control over the characters helps make sure that they are always represented accurately and in a respected nature.
The director of Smash Bros. also said that although he expected Banjo-Kazooie to be a problem due to them being owned by Microsoft Rare was surprisingly helpful. The developers even helped to get the bear and bird into Smash Bros. and although he does not explain how he was happy it worked out so easily.
The console wars seem to be at an end as Sakurai mentions at the end that he has no interest in the console wars of Nintendo vs. Sony vs. Microsoft. With the recent cooperation between Sony and Microsoft paired with the open communication happening with Nintendo gamers might be able to see an end at the age-old feud.
Sakurai believes that all consoles have great games and thus he will respect all games no matter what platform they come out on. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is available on the Nintendo Switch, and although it now includes additional characters the base price of the game will not increase. Fans of the series will be happy to try out the new challenge and be content to know that more characters are in the future.
