sorry to double post, but I have to comment on the rest of the episode.
Jon, you better pray that somebody never transcribes this podcast into japanese for Masahiro Sakurai's consumption, because your words this episode would WOUND him. remember that podcast a couple of years back that got that oen treehouse guy fired for talking candidly about Sakurai rebalancing Ness to be bad in a smash bros. game because the guy beat Sakurai? yeah.
Sakurai does the character design and balancing. he lords over the artistic teams to make sure they capture the essence of what little things like what the Hitsparks look like are consistent. he at the very least sits in on meetings about game balance and personally hashes out how to impliment these sorts of things. His wife does the UI for these games.
Now, it'd be foolish to say that there isn't young talent in japan that could emulate or even surpass Sakurai's work. I mean, if you want an example of what Smash Bros. looks like without Sakurai, look no further than Project M, Brawl Minus, the myriad Smash 4 mods out there, or games like Rivals of Aether, which does a pretty good job of making a sprite based game that captures the Smash Bros. Spirit pretty effectively.
What I'm saying though, is that you are suggesting prying a man's BABY away from him. I think he'd actually be happy if it wasn't the corperate-consumer juggernaught that it is, that he could let this behemoth lie, but he knows in his heart of hearts that Smash Bros. could potentially lose it's SOUL if he's not there to shepherd it through the pitfalls of such a game. I think at this point, as maddening as it is and as unhealthy as this is, Masahiro Sakurai has resigned himself to this fate; as long as he draws breath, as long as he has passion for what he does, he's going to ride this bull into the sunset.