I decided to have a look at the current numbers of it, since it's obviously only out in Japan at the moment, and it turns out it didn't sell too great for a JRPG over there, however, it has shown legs to some extent:

http://www.vgchartz.com/game/45870/ninokuni-shiroki-seihai-no-joou/Global/

FW: 66,887

Overall: 198,943

I've heard the game was pretty expensive to make, and I reckon it was too, considering both Studio Ghibli and Joe Hisaishi were involved, lol. I doubt they'll have made their money back from the amount of sales so far...

So anyway, I'm wondering, how do you think the game will sell in the west?

Looking at the current US preorders, which are from December 29th:

http://www.vgchartz.com/preorders/

It's in 13th position with 75,089 preorders, and still has 4 weeks to go, so we know that, atleast in the US, it'll have a bigger opening than Japan, which is nice, and will add to the sales, but just how big of an opening will it be? Personally I'm pretty confident that it will fall between 125-150k FW in US, but I'm not sure how it will do elsewhere, such as in the EU, since we're not exactly known for buying JRPG's, so I'm imagining less than 50k FW, but could crawl to 150-200k Lifetime, I could be terribly wrong here, but I'm hoping I'm wrong and it sells higher.

After the FW sales are in for both US and EU (And Aus and other places ofcourse), I'm guessing the game will sit at around 400k, and break 500k within the next 2-3 weeks, and from there make a steady crawl to anywhere between 750k-1m by the end of the year.

What about you guys, what do you think it will sell FW in the US and EU both seperately and together, and how about lifetime?

(I may add a poll if requested, but it's more of a "free vote" thread if you know what I mean?)

I expect it to sell 200K to 400K by the end of the year.

By looking at Tales of Graces F, I think Ni No Kuni will sell just as well because of the studio(s) that is behind it. And looking at Persona 4: Golden, people want JRPGS.

I'm assuming you're talking about the US and EU combined there and not worldwide? Because 200k is 110% guarranteed just with Japan, since it's only 1,057 off doing it itself, and if it doesn't manage that, then I'll lose all hope for Japanese gamers, lol.

And yeah, I reckon that Studio Ghibli's involvement will get it more sales too, since they're pretty much beloved around the globe, and their films sell great, so if people hear about their involvment in a game, then that's more than likely a reason to pick it up.

Tales of Graces f did sell decent in the US, especially for a late HD port, lol, but in the EU it's done pretty bad to be honest, not sure if Bamco are happy with the EU numbers, but I doubt it. Persona 4 Golden on the other hand (Talking purely about the US release here) did pretty well up to Christmas, but in the week after (December 29th in the database), it dropped off, however, I reckon by the end of the year it'll be firmly over 200k, somewhere between 250-300k sales, and that's quite impressive for a game which falls into the JRPG category, is a remake, and is on the Vita, however, it's also a proven franchise that we know sells well anyway. Ni no Kuni is a new IP (Hopefully it'll spawn sequels or something if it does well, would that be great or what?!) and we don't know how it'll do in the west, which is why I've made this thread.

Anyone else?

I didn't take into account of Japan numbers. It would be silly if it didn't reach 200K within the coming weeks. I was speaking only for the US, since the European and Australian versions were delayed until February first. I know it's not a big delay, but I was expecting it to be the same week as the US version.

It will do better than the how it did in Japan because the DS version didn't come to the US and Europe.  At least that is what I expect.

450 k FY

300k LTD for US, 150-200k LTD Europe.

im hoping for at least 500k NTSC/PAL LT which would leave it roughly at 700k, combined with the ds sales thats not too bad.

I think it will get to a million. There has been a lot of hype for this game and the initial reviews look very promising. If it does as well critically as its expected to then I expect a lot of word of mouth and legs as was the case with demons souls.

While I would really like this game to do spectacular (big fan of Ghibli), I don't honestly see it surpassing the 1mil barrier WW. I don't see many NA buyers realizing what the game is by name, and the whole "cute ghibli" style doesn't seem to be very huge here.

If I ever get a PS3 this will be the 1st game I pick up though.

The boxart looks amazing, I don't really expect it to affect sales much as the Tales of Symphonia art did however.