Professor Layton 2?!

The game I am most anxiousely awaiting to be announced is Professor Layton and the Devil's [Demon's][Pandora's] Box, the sequel to Professor Layton and the Curious Village. Devil's Box was released in Japan on November 29, 2007 and has already sold over 860,000 copies. However, no release date has been announced for America.

Last week on IGN's Nintendo Voice Chat podcast, they speculated that this game would not be localized because of the high cost of translating the text and replacing puzzles that are specific to Japan. They stated that it would cost as much to localize the game as many games cost to make. They further cited the fact that Curious Village has only sold around 350,000 copies in America. This figure, they stated, would likely not justify the localization of the game.

However, they ignored the fact that the game has already sold over 620,000 in Europe and Australia (even though the game was released in November of 2008, nine months of the American release). Europe is sold out of the game, and this game may reach 1 million in sales in Europe alone. Thus, bringing the combined sales of America and the other regions above that of the Japanese release. This fact gives me great hope that we will see a release in America.
Recently in the Official Nintendo Magazine (a European magazine) the cover announced that it contained a preview of Devil's box.

This is pretty good evidence to me that the game is in the works. I assumed that the localization is not much different for the U.S. than it is for the U.K. versions. As such, I think this game will reach our shores before the end of 2009. This game was also on a number of year end lists as the hand-held game of the year. I think Nintendo would be foolish not to localize this game.