Considering that most of those have sold over a million units, and some keep pumping out sequels with relatively good production values (The Banner Saga is getting both a sequel and a miniature board game, and Valkyria Chronicles is getting a remaster, has sequels and has a spin-off coming this way), I fail to see how they are niche.

Lol yeah I was about to say. Did the past FE Games had much fanservice as in Fates? If it did I would understand why they left, if it didn't have that much fanservice before............... I don't what to call them! 

And like what Tbone said. It looks like it didn't affect the sales in the west! And EU isn't even included yet. 

I guess users like Ruler does love them Fanservice more than what the game WAS and IS meant to play for. Hence the past thread he/she made about her/his frustration on it. 

The mobile game is basically just an advertisement for the real games so it can only help. I mainly hope Fire Emblem's success encourages them to bring Advance Wars back.

You are not alone mate!

Include me on that one too!

And I do remember Nintendo (or someone in Nintendo) saying that the point of their smartphone games is to make people (from a different market) to buy the BIG game on the console or handheld. 

They are most likely not abandoning these franchise being released on Consoles and/or handhelds <----- Which a lot of people seem to think. 

FF is easier to play than a strategy RPG. Strategy RPG's are way more complex.

I remember the first time i played FF Tactics after beeing a fan of the PsOne era FF's i dismissed it as a crap game. It was slow and complicated. It made no sense to me at the time. I had options scuh as throw stone versus a big summon on the traditional games. It looked terrible.

It was only until much later that i decided to take my time with it to understand what was going on and ended up discovering an amazing game. I don't expect many would bother doing what i did.

Definition of niche-specialized but profitable corner of the market.

 Barely any of those games listed have sold 1 million.

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=disgaea&publisher=&platform=&genre=&minSales=0&results=200

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=advance+wars&publisher=&platform=&genre=&minSales=0&results=200

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=tactics+ogre&publisher=&platform=&genre=&minSales=0&results=200

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=valkyria+chronicles&publisher=&platform=&genre=&minSales=0&results=200

The problem with that definition, which I'm not calling wrong, is that then almost every game made on a specific genre is niche, because most games are specialized in one area and profit from it. With that definition of yours, certain games can sell millions and they'd still be niche; because they are specialized in a specific corner of the market, and profitable. Because in this case we wouldn't be talking about "lesser known games that get to a tiny audience", but rather, a whole different meaning.

I'm guessing you're saying these games are niche as in "very few people bought them but they loved them anyway" despite your first definition. And yet, they aren't. Valkyria Chronicles sold over a million units. Tactics Ogre in both platforms accumulate over a million units as well. The Banner Saga was extremely successful, and I could concede Disgaea isn't as successful as I thought. As for Advance Wars, we're talking about a franchise that sells more than half a million units per entry, save for the first DS game (which I honestly thought it was more successful). But if you need more examples, there's also King's Bounty, which were a series of successful SRPGs on PC, and let's just not mention Heroes of Might and Magic, which have spawned over six mainline entries and countless of spin-offs for multiple platforms.

Sure, there are games like Vandal Hearts or Jeanne D'Arc which are niche because they didn't manage to pull such successful numbers like most of those. But as far as I can tell, I've managed to name quite a lot that did (and to be fair, there aren't much more). Add to them Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy Tactics and voila. Turns out SRPGs aren't niche, they just don't get that many games.

Hopefully the franchise continues to grow. Mobile will help a little I believe as Awakening showed that casual gamers do matter as accessibility was one of the main reasons why some people looked the other way. Permanently losing your characters? That's something newcomers are not used to and may not feel up to that particular challenge. With casual mode, they are able to experience the story and the characters without too much fear. Then if they're up to it, they can go to the normal perma death mode.

i believe what it means by specialized is a small part of the overall market, in which case SRPG make up an extremely small part of the overall dedicated gaming market. does the genre even make up 1% of annual revenue or unit sales?

1 million is still pretty niche, if a device has an install  base of 80 million and a game sells 1 million than that game sold to a whopping 1.25% of the install base, that is niche.

If a device sells 800 million units of software and the entire SRPG genre makes up 8 million of that, thats only 1%.

Most SRPGs fail to sell 1 million and the ones that do, dont sell much more than that. the genre typically has very low attach ratios and make up a very small amount of the software market. its a niche genre, thats not a bad thing, but its the truth.

the reason there arent alot of SRPG released is because its pretty damn niche.

Fire Emblem is a moderate success as a resurging IP but it remains to be seen whether or not it becomes a breakout hit in western territories ...