Both these two games are jrpg games, and should be fit to sell well in that region.  Ni no kuni should be more capable than wii, since the ps3 is more of a "jrpg console" than the wii. But none of those games did all that well in japan, even though both have met tons of praise here in the west. Didn't the japanese press like these games? Were there poor advertisement (none at all)? 

I can't peak for the quality of ni no kuni, since I haven't tried it yet, but I sure can speak for xenoblade. So far, this game is a serious contender to my best game of all time, and if some think that ni no kuni is a better game than xenoblade, I think that should speak for the quality of that game too. So why did the games go so much worse in Japan? 

Isn't Japan kind of saturated with JRPG's? Maybe the West was just happy to finally have a good one come out...

The DS version of Ni No Kuni screwed up everything. Even Level-5 said so in an interview once.

Pretty much this.

Japan gets a weekly dosage.

We lucky to get one every few months.

yep thats the main reason

Really? I thought people actually like the DS Version.

Hino called DS version a "hit product" after it passed 500k in Japan.

But even if some gamers aren't happy with DS one, not all of those who bought PS3 game, gave it high scores. It's like ~6,8/10 on biggest japanese user rating portal mkii.

Btw, it's a fail decision to make it on portable and then on HD system They'd better focused only on one version.

So if a game sales better on any other console than Sony's Playstation its always screwed up? The DS version was for certain cheaper to make and it also sold more, so more money than the HD version. That isn't screwing up...

Also this is the best thread i've seen in awhile. I really want to know why, because Ni No Kuni and Xenoblade indeed sold signficantly better in western countries. I don't believe the reason is because Japan is saturated with JRPG's. Has anybody seen the Dragon Quest VII numbers this week? It's already way more than NinoKuni and Xenoblade COMBINED!

Contrary to spoiled Japanese market, we Westerners were craving for good JRPGs for decades, finally we get 2 good ones.

Hehe, thanks ^^