The soundtrack for Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is massive. Despite all of the music the game has, an official OST release is happening. Fans in Japan will be able to pick up the soundtrack on May 23.

Back when the soundtrack was announced, lead composer Yasunori Mitsuda wrote up a blog explaining how difficult it was putting everything together. Fortunately, nextday from VGMdb translated a good portion of the post.

Mitsuda wrote the following:

First of all, the most difficult thing this time was the total number of songs and the length of the songs.

When you add in the jingles, the soundtrack becomes a 6 CD release.

To be honest, there are no 6 CD cases, so we had to make a special specification (also for the regular edition).

Second is the production cost. It takes a considerable budget to master 6 CDs.

Also the song titles, the ordering of the songs, the design, the mastering contract…

It took months to pull everything together (in addition to other various problems that occured). In fact, we’ve been working on this since before the game was even released.

[…]

Price – Cost = Sales

This calculation completely failed. The USB edition is very expensive, but even so it’s in a state of unprofitability.

Your first thought might be “Huh, really?”

The cost is not simply the USB cost, the package cost, the printing fees, and the mastering fees.

Many people were involved in creating the soundtrack this time. Their time is not free.

Our staff has been working for months to shape this release. Considering the staff’s labor costs and time restrictions, it is not a very profitable product.

Our company mainly does contract work. It is not our main line of work to manufacture products. Because of this, we failed to properly evaluate the situation.

[…]

To tell you the truth, this soundtrack is a bargain (lol). It would be absolutely impossible on another label. I can say this with confidence.