Is this why JRPG's are a dying breed?

[Demotruk]

thelifatree said:

Demotruk said:

MrT-Tar said:

JRPGs are not as popular as in the late 1990's, but I think that they are in no way 'in decline' from last generation.  The majority of what I would call the 'big JRPG series' are either seeing increased sales this generation or will by the time they are discontinued.

Those already outsold

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I didn't put Fire Emblem down due to missing numbers, therefore not really a fair test

Don't get me wrong, I think JRPGs are in decline from their pokemon RBY Final fantasy VII fuelled height, but I believe that JRPGs not called Final Fantasy or Tales are generally on an increase in popularity from last generation

That's a very selective way of looking at it. One, "not called Final Fantasy" excludes a series that accounts for many millions in decline, and you've plainly ignored series like Kingdom Hearts which also accounted for millions of sales last gen but not so much now.

If you take a non-selective look, such as combining the sales of the top ten jRPG's of each gen you find they're roughly flat (accounting for the fact that some games are still selling), or if you just count the number of million sellers it's also flat. But if you exclude Pokémon and Monster Hunter from the definition of jRPG, they are sharply down in total sales but still roughly flat in total million sellers.

But it hasn't declined that much and has sold more than last gen's FFXII... the only Final Fantasy's that have outsold it are FFX, FF7and FF8... it's the 4th highest selling FF... I mean is zelda in decline too?

1) Zelda is in decline in the long run

2) Final Fantasy accounted for nearly well over 20 million sales last gen while this gen it's about half that. If you wish only to compare it to X, as a metric for the popularity of the main series, it's not such a bad decline, but on the subject of jRPG's as a whole you can't ignore millions of sales that happened last gen but not this gen, that is the bigger picture.