Banjo-Kazooie joining Smash Ultimate was planned a year ago

According to Rare's updated blog post, the collaboration between Nintendo and Rare has been in partnership for over a year now.

[PhoenixUp]

Nintendo and Rare haven’t had a partnership of any kind since Diddy Kong Racing DS back in 2007

This is a magical moment indeed

[Fluttershy77]

I think you are over hyping this. Nothing magical here, they are using a character that's owned by MS-rare, that's all.
Is like considering there's a Magical Partnership with Konami because they are using Snake or Simon Belmont

[Sciurus_vulgaris]

It’s just a character licensing deal.

[tehpees3]

What gets me is that Nintendo had 49% of Rare and their only deal in place was to keep the DK/Star Fox characters while Rare kept everything else. If Nintendo had any common sense they'd have considered the possibility that they might have needed Banjo.

While a lot of us understand why Nintendo sold them now, the backlash was extreme at the time. I wonder how big the backlash would have been if they had kept Banjo as well because he was the "main" Rare character and for many the only one they were asking for in Smash Bros. A lot think Banjo was just "considered" for Melee but I disagree.

I think if Nintendo had bought Rare outright he would have been in then. Fitting Banjo in now among weird faced avatar things, squid people, third parties and Cloud just shows he SHOULD have got in Melee since it reflects not only has Sakurai changed a lot since Melee, but Nintendo has.

Things like Wii Fit and Splatoon would never have come from Rare.

[PhoenixUp]

@ Flut

What’s there to overhype? I’m just stating it’s been over a decade since Nintendo & Rare collaborated on anything.

In general it’s magical for any guest character to get in the playable roster

@ Sci

I know

@ teh

Fitting Solid Snake into SSBB was already a sign of a changing Nintendo. Nintendo from the 90s would never consider an M-rated character in their crossover. Honestly nothing is as shocking as letting the first third party character into this series, especially a mature one.

Banjo & Kazooie were characters people were asking for for the past 20 years. At this point it’s hard to surprise me with what other guest character will make it in

[timotim]

Its been great to see the interest around this. The fans of the series went crazy during the announcement. Microsoft has to be looking into a sequel.