Hopeful News for Fans Regarding Tales of Xillia Localization

Chad Awkerman July 5, 2011 6:00 PM EST

Recently Paris, France was home to the Japan Expo and, while this is mostly a European-focused event, there are some interesting tidbits we can glean for ourselves from some interviews that were conducted with Namco Bandai.

The French fansite Kingdom of Tales garnered some interesting wording from Namco Bandai’s Tales studio executive Makoto Yoshizumi. The question was whether or not we’ll see a Tales of Xillia localization and if it depends on the sales of Tales of Graces F. Yoshizumi said, “No, no, its [localization] is completely independent of Graces F’s sales. Xillia will come if fans show they are really enthusiastic about the game.”

Pardon me, but I can’t help but doubt that. Tales fans have been “enthusiastic” since Vesperia came out in 2008 in North America, and we STILL have yet to see a release of the non-exclusive PS3 version, not to mention the two other Tales games have have finally been announced for North America and Europe aren’t due out for months (even up to a year) from now. I’d say localizing Xillia is very dependent on how Graces F and Abyss on the 3DS sells. Seriously, who are we kidding here?

In other news, Yoshizumi also put to rest once and for all if Tales of Graces F will be brought over for the Wii, as well, which is its original platform in Japan. It will not see a release on the Wii outside of Japan. Period. End of story. Why? “We wish to deliver the best and most complete experience to U.S. and European fans,” claimed Yoshizumi, “The PS3 version is on a blu-ray disc, so it would be next to impossible to condense all the game’s data to fit on a Wii disc. Unfortunately, there will be no Wii release.”

That’s fine by me, frankly. Not to say anything bad about Wii gamers, but I’m feeling awfully like the Wii doesn’t deserve such a great franchise these days, considering how Nintendo seems to be treating JRPGs they have the publishing rights to. Keep it off the Wii, hand it to PS3 owners only, and I’ll be a happy Tales fan. Yes, I’m bitter. Don’t judge me.

[Gematsu]