First off, I agree with you that for the rest of this year, the 360 has the best RPG lineup of any of the three consoles, I expect that to change at TGS when a lot of Japanese RPGs will be announced for Wii and PS3. Some have already been emerging lately (Tales, Disgaea).
Beyond that, I also bought the 360 for the RPGs. I had 3 games in mind beyond Gears when I got my 360: Blue Dragon, Mass Effect and Bioshock. 2 Of those are RPGs and both hit in the next few months.
I think you are overestimating by a lot here, specifically with the lifetime sales you are implying (Lost Odyssey 3 to 4 million lifetime????).
I think you overestimated everything except Eternal Sonata which you underestimated.
I expect these to be the round about numbers:
Mass Effect: 500,000+ 1,800,000
Lost Odyssey: 180,000+ 380,000
Blue Dragon: 120,000+ 250,000
Two Worlds: 100,000+ 210,000
Eternal Sonata: 80,000+ 220,000
Mass Effect will be the third biggest 360 games this year. It will have some cross over appeal to the shooter audience, but not a huge amount beyond the hype of a big exclusive game. I see great numbers, but not Gears of War numbers at all because this is not a shooter and it doesn't have online multiplayer. I think the November launch date is really good for this game and shows how much importance MS is giving it, but it is also kinda late in the year so it will lose some sales compard to Halo and GTA which will be out a lot longer and have their tales longer in 07.
Lost Odyssey will do good in Japan, but I dunno if it will surpass Blue Dragon there. Over here though this game will be bigger than BD. Previously I thought the opposite was true but after getting to play BD, I tend to think this will have more appeal to the average 360 owner than that game. It is coming out really late in the year too, if it comes out this year so it will have fewer days to sell. I expect it to be somewhere between 500k-750k lifetime in the US.
Blue Dragon is not gonna sell as well as I had previously believed. It is very much tailored for the Japanese audience. It will sell mainly to JRPG fans on the 360, and maybe some others but it doesn't appeal to the majority of 360 owners much.
Two Worlds is gonna do well considering that it isn't a heavy hitter like the rest of these games. I see it selling well because it is doing the Oblivion thing in 3rd person and that should already get interest, but being a big hit? I just don't see it happening. I think the game will get middle of the road reviews and it will largely be forgotten by the time we are later in the year and the bigger games hit.
Eternal Sonata is the only game that I thought you underestimated in numbers albeit only by a little. I think there is a big enough JRPG fan base on the 360 for this to sell to them strongly and break 200k this year. I don't expect it to do exceptionally well, but well enough. (This game is eye candy, BD has better graphics but this game's art trumps that game's art by a lot).
I consider all of these successes. Definitely shows the 360 has a more multi genre audience. Also, for Two Worlds this number is very good. I think Mass Effect will have a solid base for its next two sequels which I predict will do a lot better. 2nd best MS franchise introduced this gen in my opinion.
I do feel that the Japanese RPGs will sell less simply because of the 360 audience not being that big for them compared to those who would be willing to go with Mass Effect and Two Worlds. BD and Eternal Sonata will turn off a lot of people because of their 'softness' for lack of a better term and it is a shame.
This is why I predict LO to do better than those two, because I expect it to be a lot more rugged and have more freedom than these two.
Thanks to Blacksaber for the sig!
