I hope it will hommies :p, and  I hope the years i buy Nintendo Wii U because of Xenoblade Chronicles. :)

I'd say that the 'pillars' of Nintendo's stable are Mario, Zelda and Pokémon. Animal Crossing is a far more important franchise to them than Metroid.

That said, I do think that Xenoblade is going to be groomed into being Nintendo's answer to Final Fantasy, and I think it's going to be pushed hard. Not that will translate into sales.

Splatoon, IMO, has a much better chance to be up there with the Mario Karts and Smash Bros in terms of sales. Even looking at the 3 games side by side you can see the trinity there: party racer, party fighter, party shooter.

And compare the amount of E3 coverage Splatoon got with Xenoblade; more treehouse footage, huge section of show floor, big section in digital event. Don't get me wrong, Splatoon as a new title was clearly going to get more attention than one that we'd already seen a fair bit of, but I think that Nintendo is going to lean on Splatoon to be the Mario Kart of team shooters.

How many Wii U's did Tropical Freeze push? Exactly. 

Lmao at it actually asking if it well sell on a Mario Kart or Smash level. I really hope that wasn't a serious question. But Nintendo definitely does seem to be pushing the franchise in hopes of bigger success, which I agree is funny since they refused to release the first game in the US for so long. It's not gonna be a Nintendo "pillar" or anything though.

On a side note, I always find it ironic Metroid is often considered a "pillar" for the company given the original and Prime 1 are the only two to sell much of anything, and neither hit 3m. Xenoblade X could possibly sell on par with a lot of Metroid games (around a mil).

Animal Crossing maybe, but Pokemon is a part of the handheld systems stable not home console and Animal Crossing is another that sees more success on handhelds than home console. Did the home console Animal Crossing sell a lot in the two home console games it had? Yes, but no one thinks of home consoles typically when they think Animal Crossing. 

I would say this all depends on who owns the Wii U. Obviously when they throw out Mario Kart and Smash it's what Nintendo fans want, they push consoles and it has been proven gen after gen. But what type of fan owns the Wii U? I think that has yet to be determined. I know why I got mine, Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and Xenoblade. Not that I'm saying it's an absolute fact it will translate into sales, but as we are both saying it is being pushed to the owners of the Wii U more than anything else besides Mario and Link.

Splatoon could be, but we can't know if it will be a sustained hit or not until at the sales of the second. It could be a smash hit new IP though, and hopefully so. Sequels are when Nintendo is known for throwing their craziest ideas into a project and a game like Splatoon BEGS to have a lot of bat shit insane mechanics/weapons/ideas thrown in. The first Xenoblade (with the New 3DS numbers) will reach over a million, and I have every bit of confidence Xenoblade X will as well. Will Splatoon match it or even beat it? I don't know, time will tell. Judging by history, Splatoon does have every advantage except for the fact Xenoblade X will be out after Splatoon meaning a larger install base. We'll see.

As for E3. it did get more floor room, hell it even got a playable demo (which I would have loved to play), but Xenoblade has had two years of announcements (it was even a launch announcement), several trailers in Directs, an hour of playthrough in the digital event, and a series character in an isolated Smash reveal. The info I could give you about Xenoblade X would still FAR exceed how much info you could give me about Splatoon. As you said yourself, they were going to focus more on getting a new IP some hype at E3, especially one that will be releasing before Xenoblade X, it's just plain smart to do.

And I agree, Nintendo wants Splatoon to be the Mario Kart of shooters, whether Nintendo fans are looking for that kind of game time will tell. 

For Wii U yes. Do you think 3 million sales is completely out of the question? 

True, but Xenoblade Chronicles is about to be on the New 3DS, I think it will cross that million sold line, and there were a LOT of things negatively impacting the sales of Xenoblade. But selling even or even a little better than the first with only around 12 mil (by the time Xenoblade Chronicles comes out) would be a good sign of the series growth in popularity. 

I'm hoping too, and think it at least has a shot. 

I sincerely wish. JRPGs need to make a comeback and NOW!
They can cut through the decay that is the stagnant FPS genre.

In saying that, no. The game wont be a next heavy hitter for Nintendo. Nintendo simply saw that there was interest in Xenoblade so they put Shulk in Smash to drive sales much like Marth and Roy did for Fire Emblem when they appeared in Melee. And putting the first game on New 3DS will boost interest too.

Again, I would really like a new Xeno game every 2-3 years. With some other JRPGs revitalised.

They should work with Konami and get the Suikoden series exclusive! Managing 108 characters from the touch screen would be amazing! Also controlling the army on army battles (just those sections of the game mind you) could be like Civilization where you tap your units and drag them to the enemy unit you want to fight. I think it'd be great. The gamepad could be used in SO many ways it'd be ridiculous. Or why not team up with Square-Enix and make a console Crystal Chronicles X Xenoblade Chronicles. Tell me people wouldn't be excited for that! The gameplay would be exactly like the Crystal Chronicles for the DS was. It had a great control scheme and utilized the second screen very well.

Anyways, as you said about Xenoblade X, there is interest. It's all going to be about HOW they manage the series to really tell if it will be a heavy hitter. I just think the interest is there enough that it COULD.