But you didn't have to master everything.  I certainly never did and I love that game :P.  More important would be better tutorials.  The original Xenoblade also had some convoluted systems but they kinda made them side things and didn't force you to do them.  And explained them better.  

The biggest disaster was the marketing.  One commercial on two chanels.  No ads in theaters during the Star Wars run, I mean come ON that is the biggest missed opportunity in gaming marketing history possibly.  And they didn't even finish the Survival Guide on time, which was terrible since they could have posted the last one as a more action orriented presentation at The Game Awards, another colosal missed opportunity,  

So yeah, given XCX still sold .91 mil with all this crap, it definitely could have gone past a million quite easily.

I still think this kind of excessive complexity is a turnoff for the mass market. Heck, it was a turnoff for me as a hardcore gamer who wastes hours a day on a gaming sales forum. Looking at the kind of games that pull 2.5 million plus, they're generally a lot more user friendly.

Nintendo's marketing for Switch has generally been leaps and bounds ahead of the Wii U days, but I'm still not confident they're going to give XB2 a big push. I mean Nintendo Direct coverage and ads on Nintendo's youtube channel is one thing, but that really only reaches existing fans and hardcore gamers, not the masses.

So far, every Nintendo published game has gotten a push.  And Nintendo developed games have gotten the bigger ones.  It will be interesting to see their approach to Xenoblade 2 this holiday.  They have given it significant prominance in every general event so far, so I am anticipating significantly better coverage than XCX.  Whether it will be quality or whether it will be as big as it could be, remains to be seen.  

I'm not thinking it'll get some excellent sales, but I think life time it could get at least a mil. maybe 500k by the end of the year?

I'd say between 1m and 1.5m. It'll do better then Xenoblade 1 and XCX because it's not releasing on a dying console.

1.5mm seems reasonable. But, without knowing much about the quality of the game, that's really just a wild guess.

300k FW and probably around 1.2m LT.

The think that given the circumstances surrounding Xenoblade Chronicle and Xenoblade Chronicles X; the amount of sales that they have accumulated is good all things considered.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 has the benefit of releasing early in the Switch's life cycle, therefore it will have more time to sell. Those who bought they other titles will likely pick this one up, and new comers will probably pick this up as it is a holiday title for the Switch.

I predict that Xenoblade Chronicles 2 will sell a total of 1.5 - 2 million in its lifetime.

It should do better than the previous 2 entries. As long as it clears 1 million in the first calendar year, Nintendo will see it as a success. I think that's doable, honestly.

EDIT: By first calendar year, I don't mean 2017. Firstupid full year of sales closing December 2018.

FW: 390k
LT: 1.5m