Fire Emblem: Awakening was meant to be the last game in the series "Due to the declining sales of the Fire Emblem series, Fire Emblem Awakening was meant to be the last title developed in the series, if the game didn't reach at least 250,000 copies sold."
Of course Nintendo wanted to use the new hype around the series that they annonuced its successor early. They had not enough faith in the franchise to make it on its own so they split the development cost with Atlus and got a franchise name (SMT) that was smaller in sales but bigger in hype.
FE: Awakening was unveiled seven months before its japanese release.
FE: Radiant Dawn was unveild nine months before its japanese release.
Localization of previous games has been around half a year for NA and a year for EU.
Let us hope that there will be a more narrow relese schedule for SMTxFE. Otherwise you guys will go crazy for one more year.
EDIT: Both Radiant Dawn (Wii) and Shadow Dragon (DS) sold to less than 0.5% of the installed base. (half of the sales in NA). Awakening (3DS) was sold to 3%.
