Despite heavy fan demand for Monolith Soft's role-playing masterpiece, Nintendo of America still hasn't revealed plans to bring Xenoblade Chronicles to North America. Who will step in and save U.S. role-players from missing out on what is arguable one of the best RPGs of this console generation? Would you believe GameStop? Update: Now available for preorder through GameStop and soon directly through Nintendo.


Talk about your unlikely rescues. While publisher Nintendo is still quiet about bringing the game stateside despite loud, organized protests from role-playing fans, it looks as if retailer GameStop has picked up the RPG ball and is running with it. Spotted by NeoGAF and verified with several GameStop locations this morning, the store's computers now list Xenoblade Chronicles for an April 3 release as a GameStop exclusive.


That means eager North American role-players can walk into their local GameStop right now, plop down a fiver, and reserve their own copy of what people are saying is the greatest RPG since waiting your turn to slice people.

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If I had to guess, I'd say Nintendo, worried about losing money on a North American release, cut potential losses with a GameStop exclusivity deal. Then again I say a lot of things.

We've reached out to Nintendo of America to see how this this turn of events came about, and will update should we hear back.


Update: Nintendo of America's Facebook page just updated with images from Xenoblade Chronicles (Thanks, Taggart451). If there were any doubts, that should take care of them.

Update 2: And here's the official Nintendo page for the game. Note it has links to preorder from GameStop or directly from Nintendo. GameStop will have the retail exclusive.


Xenoblade Coming to U.S. as GameStop Exclusive [NeoGAF]