1.5 million or thereabouts I reckon.

It's the first of the series to be releasing on a healthy platform, plus Zelda and (hopefully) Skyrim will have created a base that's keen on open world fantasy adventures.

It's a first year game. I predict between 1.5 to 2 million.

FW: 350K-450K
FY: 750K - 1M
LT: 2M - 2.5M

2.5M? I dunno, I still think Xenoblade is too niche for those kind of numbers; it's complex battle system isn't very friendly to non-fans.

in my opinion it will take a long time to announce another xenoblade, as rumor monolith is working on a new ip so until the end of the switch life cycle maybe it reaches or even exceeds those numbers.

I bought Chronicles and X. Chronicles I got bored with the combat system and never beat nor will I. X I got slightly bored with the combat, but more so annoyed how many freaking quests you had to do to get exp to do the big stuff. It always felt like I was hitting some kind of wall that required griding xp to get over, which annoyed me. Because of my experience with these two, plus really not liking the art style of the new one, I don't think I'll get this game.

Edit: In the past few years I got those two games and disliked them for the said reasons, plus Project X zone (worst game of all time to me), plus Disgae 5 (worst purchase on my switch). I guess, in general, JRPG's just are horrible to me.

Are you serious? This has to be sarcasm!? I'm the guy that is freaking obsessed with stories lol. I reviews games in my "Reviews by the Walrus" and a lot of people complain how much importance I put on stories in a video game. Stories are what made me buy XC and XCX despite the gameplay not being fun. It's what made me keep playing them dozens of hours into the game, but eventually it just wasn't enough due to how repetitive the games felt.

I never thought on Vgchartz someone would tell me, of all people, that I don't care about stories lol who would have thought.

120k FW, 750k LT. It's not going to do well, I'm sorry, but Xenoblade wasn't popular to begin with and their marketing approach on this one has made it look completely unappealing.

Even without a sequel arriving in the next few years, we are talking about a fairly niche franchise in a genre that (FF aside) just isn't that popular any more. Plus the marketing on this one hasn't been the greatest so far.

Set aside genre lables which have been proven time and again to not matter to people.  Looking at the game itself, I think the franchise could sell two to three times what it has in the past, with some games selling more than others.  The X series probably has more mainstream appeal than the mainline though, as both the first one and this one have some unusual aesthetic decisions that may put some off.  But even then, not a guarantee it would make a difference.  The real time battle system used in Xenoblade is similar to numerous systems enjoyed by millions in big selling games.  Shoot, the MMO genre is *built* on this.  And it isn't just WoW keeping it alive, Final Fantasy XIV is the fastest growing MMO and uses this same style of system.  

The real question is how heavily and how consistently Nintendo is willing to push the franchise.  And of course how good that push is.  We'll just have to wait and see.