Well, the industry has grown catastrophically from the SNES, PS1 and even the PS2 days. The casualties to this growth are independent Japanese developers who cannot attach a "Final" or "Dragon" next to their world shattering, obscure JRPG who gets its plugged pulled because of publisher demands, time constraints, and on. In this sense, I blame the publishers for not fostering a more diverse selection of games in EVERY genre, not just JRPGs.
Look at FPS games, the big sellers every year come down to Call of Duty and Battlefield. In racing it is Forza and Gran Turismo, also throw in a Need for Speed every now and then, but that series is really lagging from what I read from the feedback. As for sandbox games it is even more narrow with all the great sellers being made by Rockstar.
The RPG genre (JRPG and WRPG) is on a similar plane of diversity as the action adventure/platforming genre where there are so many titles every year, just trying to figure out which one to buy can be a mind boggling, heart tugging process. Every year, you can count on 3 to 5 must buy WRPGs, which almost all are heavily advertised. JRPGs on the other hand, don't get the same quality or quantity of advertising outside of Japan as WRPGs do in the Americas and EMEAA.
Who is to blame? Not one person or sector. I would blame it on a number of factors:
1. Overly long development times for a must buy JRPGS. This has to do with JRPGs focusing on hand-drawn graphics as opposed to computer generated graphics common in Western games along with a bunch of other factors including localization outside of Japan.
2. Publishers not fostering obscure titles to the same extent they do a Final Fantasy, Call of Duty, or Halo game. Rather, the lack of new JRPG series implies the publishers put excruciating demands on lesser known developers, while they allow a Final Fantasy game the monetary support and 4 to 5 years of development to create.
3. Sheer diversity of the RPG genre with WRPGs dominant everywhere outside of Japan. Final Fantasy alone cannot compete with Mass Effect, Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, and Borderlands all at the same time. I am speaking of console RPGs, if you want to pick straws and throw in hand-helds then you have a point.
4. Japanese advertising. Nintendo is the only company who "gets it," while the rest with Square Enix included suck compared to Microsoft, Rockstar and Bioware.
I don't believe JRPGs are dying or dead. I just think the way they are made entails a longer development time compared to a WRPG. Throw in WRPGs now in their prime and publishers not taking risks like they did during the SNES, PS1 and PS2 era and one can only conclude JRPGs are in a rut. However, as we all know it will only take one title, even a Final Fantasy game, to get gamers outside of Japan hooked on the latest JRPG.
