Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is Monolith Soft’s highest selling game ever, and a lot of that has to do with its sales in the west, which have been disproportionately high compared to its sales in Japan (especially compared to how JRPG sales usually go). Well, that and the game’s really long legs, which is unusual for a JRPG.
Speaking to USGamer, Monolith Soft Executive Director Tetsuya Takahashi seemed to agree, noting that the game saw extremely high sales in the west, far higher than what Monolith Soft had anticipated.
“From a sales perspective, I have to say Xenoblade Chronicles 2 exceeded my expectations. We really saw more people pick the game up and experience it in the North American and European territories than we thought would do so,” he said.
The good news is, it looks like it may have raised the series’ profile in general, because Takahashi noted that the just released (and excellent) Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna, the Golden Country, the standalone expansion for the base game, has also seen a better than expected response so far, at least in Japan.
“It’s still early days for the Torna DLC, but from what we’ve seen in Japan, the sales of the Torna DLC are exceeding our expectations as well,” he said.
This is great to hear, of course. Monolith Soft has made exceptional games forever, but they’d never actually done well until Xenoblade 2, and it’s good to hear that they finally found the success they deserved. Given how fantastic Xenoblade 2 itself is, I don’t think anyone can begrudge them this newfound success either.