"Isn't looking likely?" No, it is extremely likely he is lying through his teeth, if not outright confirmed he's lying.
1. The beginning of Persona Q outright confirms Yu and Makoto will meet again, which is blatant setup for P4AU. No way ATLUS put that in the script without expounding on it.
2. Elizabeth stated she would join forces with those who bonded with Makoto's soul to enact a miracle. It is no coincidence that every member of SEES is in P4AU, and that Makoto bonded with the Investigation Team in Persona Q.
3. Hashino confirmed P4AU would tie up all loose ends of the previous game: this includes Elizabeth's story.
4. The 4Gamer article last December stated:
http://www.4gamer.net/games/229/G022917/20131130007/
“The characters we're divulging about this time, appearing in this version's story is (in green) Adachi Tohru, a new character that looks like Minazuki, and we can also reveal there is (in green) one more new character. While we can't reveal this character's name, and presently, we don't know if they'll become playable, we can say that the fans have certainly been hoping for them. Please look forward to our follow-up report.”
At the time this was written, the character was a guaranteed NPC new to the Story Mode, and they could not disclose the former's name because spoilers. It clearly cannot be referring to Adachi, as they had already confirmed him. It cannot be Rise as she was an NPC in the first game. It also cannot be Ken and Koromaru as they were not highly requested by the Japanese audience, and are
two characters, not
one. The top two requested characters in the game are Adachi....and you guessed it...
Makoto. It is obvious why they did not name drop him.
5. In the same Famitsu which announced Ken and Koromaru, it was confirmed players would see
"that character from Persona 3" in the game's story. It is pretty obvious who
"that character" is. Makoto is basically confirmed for story.
6. On to the subject of Makoto being playable:
http://p-atlus.jp/p4u2/special/dlccard.html
There are 37 DLC cards, each character serving as an "entry" to the P1-Climax. There are currently 35 characters in the roster if we include Shadow Types.
Adachi is entry No. 35, being our latest addition to the roster. That means No. 36 and No. 37 are not characters (which I find unlikely due to each character being an "entry")
or ATLUS is deliberately hiding at the very least one character from us.
7. Literally every battle song from P3 and P4 has been added to P4AU's OST. Originally, there were two
very suspicious omissions from the OST. The first being "
A New World Fool", Adachi's battle theme. However, the song was revealed the same time Adachi was revealed to be playable. The
only "missing" song at this point is
"Burn My Dread -Last Battle-", which would almost certainly be Makoto's theme "if" he were playable. Coincidence? You be the judge of that.
Lastly, I would like you to notice how cautious Namba is while speaking in regards to the P3 characters presence in P4AU. He is thinking out his answers VERY thoroughly before "deconfirming" him. Also, you misquoted him. He slipped up, because he was thinking too much. What he ACTUALLY said was:
"It is sad that the Persona 3 protagonist is includ-NOT included in this game."
This is not the first time a developer has lied about characters not becoming playable. You literally have to be the biggest sucker on the planet to believe a word he said. LMAO.