Xenoblade 3 especially is being advertised as a direct sequel to both 1 and 2.
The game was said to be set in the future of both games, but it's not advertised as a direct sequel. The world, cast and storyline are pretty much unrelated to what people who didn't played the games have seen from XC1/XC2. Not a single recurring character if you didn't see Nia in the last chapters or deduced the other masked woman from that.
On the other hand, we have many cases of games like Uncharted 4, and Witcher 3, which are clearly sequels, starting from the main character, and people have no problem in skipping the previous entries.
The kinds of players that gravitate towards JRPGs are likelier to be early adopters and 2 had particularly good legs for a JRPG as well, so I don't think launching on a larger install base will make that much of a difference either. Lastly, jumping from 2.5m (which isn't even an official number) all the way to 4m would constitute astronomical growth.
I agree for the most part. If it had released on a 40+ mi base and after many stabilished hardcore series had brought their fans to the system, I wouldn't expect growth either.
But there was under 15 millions Switch users at launch, the first notable game in the genre besides XC2 was OT almost 1 year later and IPs with a fixed and large fanbase took even longer. XC2 was basically selling to hardcore XC, Nintendo, and BotW fans, but not so much to the genre fans.
And as you kinda pointed out, JRPGs are extremely frontloaded, meaning the target audience likely favors buying old games used and/or prioritize newer games. So them not being there on launch probably cost XC2 some sales.
Unless future trailers really rock the boat, what we've seen so far does not paint such drastic change to justify that leap.
I agree. If it was another game like XC2, I would expect 3~3.5. But I expect them to polish it some more before release, streamline further the combat and have better tutorials, so I voted 3.5~4.
But for it to reach 4+ million, it will need to be a big improvement in those areas, but still within the realm of possibilities.
IMO, the main barrier they need to cross for something like 4 millions is the tutorials. A combat like XC2 will never be as pick and play as 99% of the 10+ million sellers are, but it's nowhere near as complex as it appear, at least for breezing through normal difficulty. But the tutorials throw so much information at the player and doesn't even confirm the player actually understood the most important ones, among other problems.
