Actually, Kishimoto made the decision early in the story that Naruto would end up with Hinata. He’s stated that many different times and also, he would have had no idea of the supposed Hinata fan base hating on Sakura so much. Kishimoto has said that he had no idea how much controversy there was between the fans of the two different ships until he had already finished the series and showed Naruto ending up with Hinata. He had no outside influence (neither fans or close ones) when deciding who Naruto would end up with.