The gaming space is a weird place. Things happen behind closed doors that never reach the eyes and ears of the overall public, and sometimes, the games that “should be legendary,” aren’t. Then, in contrast, the games that “should just be small hits” become legendary icons of the industry. One such title was Xenoblade Chronicles, even though it started its “journey” in the most “fan-ish” of ways. It was supposed to be a Japan-only title in 2009, then it got ported to Europe a year later and stayed there…until Operation Rainfall came around (a HUGE fan movement) and got it ported to the US.
Given where it stands now in Nintendo lore as one of its best RPG franchises (with a GOTY nominee via Xenoblade Chronicles 3), it begs the question…why didn’t the original come stateside around the time of the Europe port?
Enter Kit Ellis, a former Nintendo of America employee who noted on the Kit & Krysta Podcast that at the original reveal of the game at E3, he was told by a “certain group” that he wasn’t to show off that game to press because they “knew’ it wasn’t going to come to the US:
“As far as how those decisions were made, it was always a very shadowy thing. There was a team at Nintendo that made those sorts of decisions that we were not a part of. That was a very executive heavy group and they would analyze the market and the potential audience size – all that stuff. It was like flipping a coin – sometimes these were the right decisions, sometimes they weren’t.”
In this case, it wasn’t. The OG title with Shulk got onto the Wii, but it didn’t perform that well despite the movement. Then, it got ported to the 3DS, but had more performance issues. Thankfully, alongside its two “official” brethren, it got the definitive edition that sold over a million units, helping recement Xenoblade Chronicles as something worth continuing.
