I think JRPGs have been on decline this generation because Japanese publishers have been isolating themselves to handhelds, making JRPGs more tailored to the Japanese market who is a large consumer of handhelds. JRPGs have become more obscure and less common in the rest of the world. It started when the gaming media exacerbated the issue by repeatedly calling JRPGs as stale, demanding that they change. While change is good, the changes JRPG developers have made have not been good. They have to try too hard in order to avoid media backlash, but by doing so remove the aspects of the games that made people like them. This wide swept failure resulted in publishers isolating themselves to the handheld Japanese market and we are where we are today.
Before the PS3 everyone was nice to me :(
