Xenoblade Chronicles X is a massive, open world action RPG with full character customization, dynamic missions, and giant mecha suits. It is a high budget game for the Wii U, and it is everything that the system needs to get the attention of an audience that would otherwise not pay it much attention, and a sequel to one of the most acclaimed games of last generation.
So why is it not getting much of a marketing push from Nintendo?
In a recent interview with Nintendo Everything, Dianne Segovia, the manager of marketing for Nintendo of Latin America, tried to explain the rationale behind Nintendo not pushing the game as much.
“Xenoblade Chronicles X is an RPG, a game for RPG and Xenoblade fans. We didn’t do anything too big because the audience for the game already know it exists and is already attentive of its release.”
I’m not sure I agree with this rationale, but on the other hand, I also think it is easy to divine Nintendo’s true reason for not pushing the game so much- simply put, Xenoblade is a niche game to begin with, and its sales performance will doubtless be limited by the Wii U’s even more meagre install base. In other words, while the game might have even made a profit on a more successful system with a healthier, more engaged install base, on the Wii U, Nintendo have probably already written it off as a sunk cost. In that context, they are probably trying to minimize further expenditure on the game.
Xenoblade Chronicles X will launch exclusively on the Wii U on December 4.