This post has not been edited by the GamesBeat staff. Opinions by GamesBeat community writers do not necessarily reflect those of the staff.
After plenty of speculation, Nintendo of America finally confirmed on their website that Xenoblade would come out on April 3, 2012.
The rumor of a possible release started at around 9 a.m. on Dec. 2, when someone posted a photo of Gamestop’s internal point of sale system that revealed Xenoblade Chronicles as a Gamestop exclusive item. The photo was taken from NeoGAF.com, an online gaming forum website. According to the system's database, this game would come out on April 3, 2012.
As everyone knows, Nintendo of America received heavy criticism when their president said that they wouldn’t release their lineup of Japanese RPGs in America for the Wii. It seemed ludicrous that they especially wouldn’t pay attention to one of Nintendo’s own highest-rated titles, Xenoblade Chronicles. Thus American fans decided to initiate a plan to convince Nintendo of America to change its mind.
Operation Rainfall, the folks behind the campaign to localize these Wii RPGs, even came up with a big marketing plan just to grab Nintendo of America's attention. This plan included a mass purchase of the original Final Fantasy on the Wii Virtual Console. Their entire operation is on their blog page here.
One would have to wonder why it took so long for Nintendo of America to wake up. Xenoblade was one of the biggest games to come out in Japan. Nintendo also has plenty of other role-playing games that they could have unleashed from their arsenal by now.
On the positive side, it looks like Xenoblade is finally coming to America. Perhaps they'll release the two other role-playing games, The Last Story and Pandora's Tower. One can only hope.
Check out some of Nintendo's photos of artwork from the game on their Facebook page here.
Nintendo released a trailer of game footage on their website, complete with English dubs. Click here to watch it on their website.
Any thoughts about the upcoming Japanese RPG release? Thoughts about possible new RPG releases from Nintendo of America? Write it in the comments below.