The Last Story has quickly become the biggest game yet for its publisher, XSEED Games, which made its name on importing Japanese cult favorites. But it was a struggle to bring it to the west at all, since concerns about releasing a $50 RPG on a "dead platform" made some people, even inside the company, skeptical of its success.

"It was a constant fight even within our own organization," XSEED's Ken Berry told Kotaku. "To our external sales reps, we'd be saying, 'No, like you guys don't understand. There's tons of fans out there that are asking for this. There's a huge fan movement.' I mean, so yeah. In the end, I think we were right."

He says the fans "put their actions and their wallets where their mouths were" to the surprise of the marketing department.

It's a good thing they did, because even as a company known primarily for publishing niche titles, past failures come into play when deciding what to take on next. Berry said they take "flack from our fans" for not bringing over sequels to games like Retro Game Challenge or Half-Minute Hero, but those games sold poorly. Regarding Half-Minute Hero, the company's worst seller to date, Jess Chavez remarked: "Just imagine our hypothetical threshold and then cut that by five."