Tales of Vesperia confirmed for 360 and US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[slacker164]

The problem with the 360 and JRPGs (it's fine for western ones) is the potential future. The majority of JRPGs (and even Japanese games in general) on the system are paid exclusives. If if MS decides they've spent enough money on Japan and stops funding games, the flow of titles is likely to dry up. The horrible sales in Japan make it really unlikely for JRPG developers to put games on it w/out some incentive from MS. They might make a few to capture sales in the west if the 360 was really dominating sales in the west, but that's becoming less and less true, especially in Europe.

Also, the 360 has been out a year longer and most of the JRPGs didn't come until the second year. This is pretty typical for JRPGs on new systems. The PS2 had a really lacking JRPGs lineup its first year too. So I don't think it really makes sense to compare current libraries when looking for a predictor of the future.

As for the PS3, it's pretty much a no-brainer that it will get JRPGs given the current situation. In the worst case scenario, it will at least get first/second party JRPGs like Rogue Galaxy, Dark Cloud, etc. Being a Japanese company, Sony has a pretty strong ability to produce JRPGs on their own. More importantly though, the console actually sells in Japan, and for all the negativity it receives, it's not doing that poorly outside of Japan (and certainly not failing anywhere on the level the 360 does in Japan). Furthermore, they have FFXIII. This is big enough that small developers making more niche JRPGs will follow wherever it goes. If a system has a main entry FF games, there's no doubt that a fair portion of the target demographic for JRPGs owns that system. The 360 on the other hand has not proven that the target demographic is there at all. You can argue that it hasn't been given a chance to prove JRPGs can sell on it since it hasn't had any big franchise titles, but the point is moot since the target demographic for JRPGs is largely Japan (imagine that) where the system is all but dead.

So what it comes down to for me is not only what's available now, but what the future holds. Right now the 360 has more exclusive JRPGs, but that doesn't mean it has a lot or that I want all of them. I'd very much like to play Blue Dragon, have mild interest in LO (looks too geared toward western gamers for my taste), and I'm certainly interested in just about anything Tales. So three games, maybe. There's no way in hell I'm buy a $300+ system for three games. It may get more, but it's hard for me to imagine there will ever be more than 5 or 6 JRPGs on the 360 that I'm interested in. On the other hand, it would be shocking if the PS3 were to end up with fewer than a dozen, making it a much more attractive purchase. This is of course a very selfish reason to want the game on the PS3, but with the sales disparity in Japan, it also seems completely insane to not put it on the PS3.