"would" - possibility?

[bender9]

Assuming that Mary just hung up the phone.

Mary: The guy on the phone had French accent.
Peter: It would be Nathan.

I wonder if it is correct to use "would" in this case, because modal verb "would", unlike will, cannot be used to express the sense of possibility.

Personally, I reckon that "could" should be used OR "would have been", just as:
It would have been Nathan.

To English natives, is "would" usually used in this sense?

your help is immensely valuable.

 

[emsr2d2]

Assuming that Mary just hung up the phone.

Mary: The guy on the phone had French accent.
Peter: It would be Nathan.

I wonder if it is correct to use "would" in this case, because modal verb "would", unlike will, cannot be used to express the sense of possibility.

Personally, I reckon that "could" should be used OR "would have been", just as:
It would have been Nathan.

To English natives, is "would" usually used in this sense?

your help is immensely valuable.

Yes, to me, "would" is useable here. It does, however, denote a little more than possibility - I would say that Peter is almost certain that it was Nathan on the phone, given the information he has about the caller's accent.

If he only believes that it's a possibility that it was Nathan, he is more likely to say "Ah, that could be (or have been) Nathan".