maybe they think western people will chose XL more then the original size due to their hand size, and they think it will cost more money to release on other region, it's Nintendo after all they have weird business practice

is it bad that after finding out that the "new 3ds" with faceplates wasnt coming to the US my hype comeplely died out.I no longer want to upgrade :P might be kinda dumb but the the xl still is great and lets see how many games actual go only to the "new" one.... dang it nintendo, why wouldnt you release this in the states????! its not like they would lose money!

The XL also sells a lot better in Japan though, likely why they didnt bother when they saw the XL murder the smaller model. Guess the faceplates dont quite do enough... should have made XL faceplates -_-