So, this doesn't really confirm that pointed fan messages from overseas fans can reach Falcom and force an apology like this, but the factors and timing add up just right. I think Falcom staff saw both e-mails (based on a polite Japanese letter about the localization's flaws) and at least two popular gaming sites reporting on the Reddit thread where it all started. Falcom's president used to run a fan site himself, and maintains intimacy with fans as a core tenet of the company, so it's no surprise if he decided to take NIS to task about how their Western subsidiary handled this year's flagship Falcom release. All told, I'm glad to have this much encouragement, though I hope it leads to XSEED and Aksys vying more aggressively to please Falcom by not letting fans down. That's just better for us in general, though I only really trust XSEED since they prioritize localization quality more than NISA and Aksys.
On the positive side, XSEED didn't start producing PC ports of Falcom's newer games until NISA and Aksys gave them competition for the localization rights.
Yeah, and XSEED's done a bunch of self-care this year very likely because they've suffered from a big loss (Akiba's Beat bombed) and haven't landed as many projects as usual. Working on PC ports, a better social media presence, and hopefully working better with Marvelous Europe shall help them compete and keep Falcom localizations (at least Trails, which I fear NISA would massively screw up).
It's nice to see PR as rare as this, but NISA continually shows their double standards wrt localization for NIS games vs. licensed projects. They overpromised for this release and made Ys VIII their lead game for 2017 while delivering its script in poor shape, on top of missing the date for their PC version. We shouldn't reward them just yet, not until the script's actually gotten a good editing pass and reflects the original dialogue as it properly should. Otherwise, that's what the fan edit's for.