Damn really? Now I have to wonder what Sakurai and Nintendo did to get them to change their mind a year later for Base roster rather than accepting licencing for both the DLC and Ultimate Base roster. Konami execs must've really resented Metal Gear during that time
Yeah, that's a weird part about the article. They said Snake and another few characters got declined so they came down to Bayonetta and Corrin as last two characters so it made me wonder about what happened.
1. Iwata asked Sakurai to works on Super Smash Bros Ultimate before he passed away in July 2015. So Ryu and Cloud definitely were agreed to be part of Smash 4 DLC way early (probably before the ballots.)
2. Iwata and Sakurai were discussing about Smash Ballot with high staffs. It's more likely that Nintendo declined Snake and another characters because its not worth for the cost and efforts to get characters in if they have upcoming Smash project for Project NX. So they probably chose to put some characters from Smash Ballot on hold for Ultimate.
3. So they went with Bayonetta and Corirn since they are pretty much cheap to make a license deal since they co-owned Bayonetta and set Corrin as a promotional character before they closed the curtain on Smash 4 DLC development.
4. Because of Smash Ballot requests so they chose to bring all veterans and few popular requests into the picture for Ultimate via Sakurai implied there are some arms-twisting moment going there.