Although Xenoblade is a big IP for Nintendo, the franchise seems to be "not very friendly" to players in North America, with the first game in the series being released in Japan a year before being released in English, and only for players in Europe. It wasn't until after the "Operation Rainfall" fan event in 2012 that Nintendo brought the game to North America.
Xenoblade was actually unveiled at the 2009 E3 show. Even though the game was announced at the largest annual game show in the United States, Nintendo America seemed to know right away that Nintendo was not going to bring the RPG to the United States.
Kit Ellis, a former Nintendo U.S. employee, revealed during a recent "Kit and Krysta" podcast episode that he asked colleagues about the game during E3. Then I was told that the game was limited to Japan, and that I wouldn't think much about other regions. Ellis was also told not to bring people (such as media workers) to the booth during the beta event, as the game will not be available in North America.
Ellis also talked about Nintendo's consideration of not launching certain games in North America at the time. On this point, he said: "As for how these decisions are made, it has always been a very mysterious thing. Nintendo has a team that is responsible for making such decisions, and we are not among them. It's a team of executives who analyze information such as the market and potential audience size. It's almost like flipping a coin – sometimes those decisions are the right ones, sometimes they're not. ”