Isn't this more on most of japanese main character design rather than, well, Sakurai/whoever picks the characters? They gotta pick popular characters and the majority of popular main characters out there are white and, probably, male, too. Like, imagine if they give Sakurai the choice of getting one Devil May Cry character. Do you really think it would be more "hype" to add Lucia instead of Dante for the sake of diversity? Personally, I don't see that. Dhalsim instead of Ryu/Ken?
It isn't like other fighting games like Tekken or SF, where they can just create new original characters and make them very different from each other. When you play Smash, you are getting a roster with the most popular characters they could get.
As for my diversity picks, I'd say Elma(XCX) is the front runner. I'd like to see Rodin, from Bayo, but Jeanne would have priority because of recognizability. Then there's Chun-Li, who is not at the front because a third third party character from the same franchise would be... quite the surprise; Akuma, Guile or even Sakura could be up there, too. Kasumi, from Dead or Alive as a Koei Tecmo pick, even though they'd probably pick Ryu(Ninja Gaiden) and with good reason, too. If there's a Mortal Kombat character, why would someone pick Kitana over Scorpion or Sub-Zero?
