| MontanaHatchet said: Meh at this thread. And meh at Stage's trolling too. I know you like Mass Effect and WRPGs a lot, but shut up already. Geez. I'm going to edit this post with some JRPG sales this generation, and some WRPG sales (on consoles), and we'll see who is right and who is wrong. Excuse me while I do this. Top 5 Japanese RPGs: Pokemon Diamond and Pearl - 17.42 million Pokemon Platinum - 6.82 million Pokemon Mystery Dungeon :EoT/D - 4.62 million Dragon Quest IX: 4.22 million Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver: 3.70 million Top 5 Western RPGs (sales are combined across current gen consoles): Fallout 3 - 4.92 million Elder Scrolls Oblivion - 4.13 million Fable II: 3.49 million Marvel: Ultimate Alliance - 3.47 million Mass Effect - 2.16 million If I'm forgetting any WRPGs on current gen consoles, remind me. Otherwise, it looks like JRPGs have still got WRPGs beaten by a wide margin. Maybe next generation.
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Your list is very revealing as you're basically saying that the JRPG is dead on consoles. That's not quite true - FFXIII will outsell any PS3/X360 WRPG in the long run - but the dominance over WRPGs is certainly diminished.
Remember that until recently JRPGs were called 'console RPGs' and WRPGs were called 'computer RPGs', with WRPGs on consoles very niche. Last gen the best selling JRPG (FFX) did 8m versus 2m for the best selling WRPG (KOTOR). When WRPG sales are competing with JRPG sales on away turf (consoles) there's clearly been a shift in WRPGs' favour.
The change is especially pronounced if we just focus on HD consoles. The 5 best selling WRPGs on X360/PS3 will have outsold the best selling 5 JRPGs on those systems two or three times over. And I do think that the sales of the two genres are related. RPGs are massive timesinks, so if people are playing WRPGs they're less likely to have the time for JRPGs.
