And let's throw in Zangeki No Reginleiv, Earth Seeker, Disaster, and, what the hell, Takt of Magic. What are your genuine predictions for sales for each title, assuming a modest ad campaign and decent reviews?

I don't think they would sell very well, honestly. I know that gamers like us care, but the vast majority of Wii owners probably wouldn't give a shit. I'd make an exception for The Last Story, though. It has some decent bonafides, it seems reasonably accessible (action-based battle), and Final Fantasy is one of the only JRPGs that still sells in the US.

Excepting the weak release schedule for 2011, I can almost understand Nintendo choosing not to bring these titles over. What I can't understand is why NOJ kept greenlighting so many niche titles. Do you know how much Earth Seeker sold in its first week? Like FIVE THOUSAND COPIES. And Pandora's Tower didn't fare too much better. What a frigging waste of money! What must Iwata be thinking as he reads those figures? They might as well have just thrown money down a hole. It's fine to condemn NoA, but let's save a little contempt for the Japanese Wii audience. The Japanese are reputed to be enormously trend-driven, and the Wii just isn't hot anymore, no matter how many good games come out for it. Not that we did much better, considering Sin & Punishment 2, though.

I guess these titles could have been in development for a long time, and Nintendo probably thought they'd just be shoring up their release list, rather than exclusively populating it, but the original funding of these games is as big of a mystery to me as their lack of localization. Or perhaps the real mystery is their reception in Japan, since almost all of these games are by quality, proven teams.

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I think that Disaster Day of Crisis, The Last Story and Xenoblade would do 200K in America, if Nintendo backed them with advertising.

Zangeki and Pandora? Probably 50K at best

Earth Seeker and Takt of Magic? I shudder at the thought.

I do think The Last Window would do well, and it is baffling why this does not get localized.

I don't know. There's no way to tell how a game would sell without actually bringing it to the market. Example, we all thought that 3DS's would sell out throughout NA for months, yet you can go to any gaming store and find them readily available.

They'd all sell like shit.

I think Disaster would have actually done pretty well back in 2008 when it would have released. It'd sell horribly if released today though.

Xenoblade and The Last Story would have probably done around 200-300k.

Pandora's Tower would have bombed.

I would have purchased every single one of these games on launch day.

How much did Xenosaga III do? Like 40-50k? I'd guess that only Last Story would break 100k.

@anon_mastermind
Import it right now, dude! As cheap as a domestic copy, and it's in English.

@anon_mastermind I agree with Anand, you should totally import it. I really wish they'd release it here, but at least it's available in English, and it's really good.

Xenoblade and The Last Story would sell 200-500k if properly marketed. Not Zelda-like numbers, but not bad. Maybe Atlus will try to pick them up?

I don't know enough about Pandora's Tower to make a call.

I would have liked to try Disaster: Day of Crisis, Another Code: R, and Fatal Frame IV, but...wow. I'm getting heated again.

I would be surprised, honestly, if any of them broke 100,000. Reggie has us cornered into the neutered category on the Wii.

Sin & Punishment Star Successor sold about 100k in the U.S.

I think that's a reasonable guess.

I don't know, it's not a straight-forward question. How many would they sell now, if Nintendo was like yeah yeah fine whatever, we'll release them, now shut the hell up and then they drop with zero advertising? Next to nothing.

How many copies would they have sold if Nintendo made a real effort to actually push these major titles like Sony and Microsoft do with the exclusives that they publish? Probably a lot. Of course, Nintendo would never do that.

How many would they have sold if Nintendo treated them as they do their b titles, which is to say released them in a timely manner with a fair but not spectacular amount of marketing? Ok, I suppose.

So basically, I think the sales of these games were kind of in Nintendo's hands. And they completely dropped the ball. Seriously. Like... who the F else would have a Sakaguchi exclusive and act like it barely exists? Even Microsoft made its Mistwalker JRPGs into respectable (if not amazing) sellers because they pushed the F out of them, and that is on a platform where there shouldn't have even been a JRPG market.

@chrisguy Massive JRPGs have the same sales potential as 3D SHMUPs? I dunno.

If NOA had taken an already localized game like Xenoblade and actually got behind it with some marketing the way they did with DQIX, I think it would've sold quite well for a brand new franchise. A few hundred thousand copies at least. This whole thing is such a joke on NOA's part. Everyone is getting this game but NA. This never would have happened under a pre-Reggie NOA.

@WrathOfSamus777

I'm not sure if you're trying to imply that Reggie is just evil or what , but a pre-Reggie Nintendo only had people like us to fall back on. Nintendo was a different company.

I guess I'd just have to ask...would it really cost them that much to put them in the US?

Yeah, these games wouldn't sell well. At all. Pandora's Tower in particular. But even so, they couldn't cost that much to bring over could they? Nintendo's rolling in money, and there is basically one game for core gamers to look forward to this year.

@Guillaume
I'm implying that this crap about not localizing games didn't start until Reggie became president of NOA. And since Nintendo is making so much money from their expanded audience now, it makes even more sense for them to take risks. The thing is, I don't think releasing an already localized game to a group of gamers you say you're trying to win back is THAT big of a risk. Especially when the game you're talking about is as good as Xenoblade is supposed to be.

@PogueSquadron
Opportunity cost from not pursuing other, more profitable avenues, instead. But that kind of falls apart when there's a huge, gaping hole in the release lineup.

@WrathOfSamus777
To be fair, there have been quite a few unlocalized gems over the years, including Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, Kuru Kuru Kururin, Animal Crossing, Starfy, Tomato Adventure, etc., etc. It does seem a bit worse now, but the biggest factor is probably that we KNOW more now.

Zero said:

How many copies would they have sold if Nintendo made a real effort to actually push these major titles like Sony and Microsoft do with the exclusives that they publish? Probably a lot. Of course, Nintendo would never do that.

Because those big marketing campaigns run you upwards of $100 million and Nintendo isn't stupid. Games sell games. Advertising does not sell games.

On topic, I can't see any of them cracking 100k in the US (ads or not) and at this point in the life cycle with stuff like Uncharted 3, Gears, Resistance, Batman, and Skyrim on the way in 2011, those poor little games would be DOA, as a good portion of the people who might buy them also have a PS3 or 360 and something much bigger to purchase and play.

I honestly don't know why people are so pessimistic about the sales, barely cracking 100k? Pretty much everything cracks 100k. Even Sin & Punishment 2 did, and that is the very definition of niche. Big, epic RPGs would sell a few hundred k at least.

As for the marketing budget, you picked an extreme example from a company trying to make its shooter compete with Call of Duty. No way would Nintendo have to spend anywhere near that in order to give these games a competitive marketing push.

And, honestly, these games seem to be pretty much top-tier, in terms of current-gen JRPGs. I don't see many recent games that can compete with them.

Then again, many 'hardcore' gamers are pretty pigheaded about the Wii. They'd probably just download them and emulate them on Dolphin, or somesuch.

Last Story might do about 200k-300k in the U.S., and Xenoblade a bit less.
I think they could both do at least half a mil worldwide each (not including japan).

If those numbers aren't enough to turn a profit, then Nintendo should release them anyway so that the Wii has a great final send off. As it stands, the Wii's lineup going into the back end of this year is just sad.

-JKR- said:

Because those big marketing campaigns run you upwards of $100 million and Nintendo isn't stupid. Games sell games. Advertising does not sell games.

That's absurd. $100 million for one game?

Web banners are cheap (I know, I create them). Web skins aren't much more expensive. E-mail campaigns are cheap. For a company with the resources like Nintendo, it wouldn't be that big of a hit in their pocketbooks.