They could be returning to a greater level of relevancy. During NES and SNES days, Dragon Quest and FF were fairly significant titles, especially in Japan. They were even published and heavily pushed by Nintendo. In the PS1 and 2 days they took a greater role. Sony promoted FF7 as the major must-have title for the system and FF10 was similarily pushed. And again, they were key 1st party published titles. With this most recent gen, we saw Mistwalker's titles fail to gain the 360 any ground in Japan and that arrangement fell apart. Final Fantasy 13 went multi-plat, losing its relevancy as an exclusive and the game caused mixed feelings among fans. It was also the only numbered, non-mmo FF this gen and they hyped Versus never showed. So many high-profile but somewhat failed jrpg intitiatives. And the situation is amplified because of other genres taking a starring role, most of all the mass popularity of shooters, music games and "active" games. With somewhat week Japanese titles and strong western RPG's like Mass Effect and Elder Scrolls, the genre has slipped to near-irrelevancy.
With the late-gen critical success of Xenoblade there is hope. Nintendo recently presented 'X' as flagship title, and the trailer already has 400,000 views on YouTube. A first party RPG presented as an exclusive system seller in the way that FF7 and 10 were could truly raise the profile of JRPG's again. If it's as good as people hope, and if it is a sales success, then it could make the genre a important one. We all know the games industry is a follow the leader industry, so a big, successful game will spawn all kinds of imitators.
