I'm still pretty new to the whole Tales scene. But one thing i've learned while visiting the various fan translation sites that are around is, there are quite a few Tales games that have never been translated into english.
Tales of Rebirth (PS2)
Tales of Hearts (DS)
Tales of Destiny - Director's Cut (PS2) <Totally different version than the gamecube one>
Tales of Destiny 2 (PS2) <Totally different game than the PS1 one, which is also called Tales of Eternia>
Tales of Symphonia (PS2) <Totally different version than the gamecube one>
Tales of Innocence (DS)
.......and there's a whole slew of more Tales games that were never officialy localized. You can check wikipedia for more details on the other games. I know that some of the fan projects have been going on for 10 YEARS and counting.
Nintendo is coming out with that new 3DS system, and Namco has decided to put a Tales game on it. Great news, right? You would think this could be another chance for them to go ahead and get one of those titles out that's listed above, but they have decided to port Tales of the Abyss to the system instead. Yeah. I was thinking that they were just taking advantage of the situation (New system with no rpg's = YOU HAVE NOWHERE ELSE TO TURN TO BUT OUR GAME! SO YOU'LL BUY OUR REHASH! )
ToA For 3DS Coming Soon
But then I remembered something. That's the same company that localizes the .hack games. I remember reporting on a story a while back that said Namco Bandai had laid off many workers.
Namco Bandai Layoffs
I know the company has slacked off of localizing .hack//Link. And they didn't even bother to put the movie (.hack GU Trilogy) out with an english dub. Just english subtitles.
So with that being said, I view their decision to port ToA to the 3DS as one where they don't have to spend very much money converting it into 3D. And put whatever extra little thing in the game to enticesuckerspeople to buy it. If they were to localize any of the other games we're waiting for, it would cost them more time and money to do it. The work's pretty much done for ToA.
I think they need the money. So I wouldn't be too hard on them for doing that.