Uhm no. The JRPG fanbase and market never changed. If anything it got bigger.
Final Fantasy VI on SNES didn't even break 800,000 units sold globally outside of Japan.
Just the casual mainstream dude bro market has sprung up AROUND it and in ADDITION to the original gaming market of the 90s.
So a few decades ago 800,000 copies was a smashing success. Hell in 1995 300,000 units was a successful money making game deserving of a sequel. Now days you can sell the same 300,000 copies (look at Ni no Kuni, Tales, etc). The only difference is 300,000 used to be acceptable but now everyone thinks it's weak when you see Call of Duty, Madden, Grand Theft Auto, etc. Every publisher thinks they are automatically entitled to sell 10 million pre orders the first day because Call of Doodoo did. You have to remember the people buying those games are NOT serious gamers, they only play what's cool and popular and would have never owned a SNES back in the day. Then you have the devil himself, Activision + EA that buys up every startup with a promising IP, dude bros it out for the holiday preorders, then loses it in the IP black hole when it fails to deliver, and goes back to their safe mainstream junk.
Then on top of it you have companies like Square trying to cater to the Call of Doodoo crowd. Not only does the "there aren't grenades and M4s with ACOGs on the front cover, this game sucks" crowd not care about Final Fantasy, Square ends up alienating their existing fan base as well with something that is no longer Final Fantasy. We see this with XIII as each entry is less successful than the last: The unreliable trendy dude bros bailed as soon as the next CoD came out, and the old school Square fans like myself are getting tired of having their hopes smashed and are starting to just give up on Square all together.
Even in the golden age of SNES/PS1 RPGs, units shipped of JRPGs were measured in the 100,000 units, just as they STILL ARE TODAY. Mom and pop sushi joints that have been around for 20 years need not go out of business or close shop just because they don't generate McDonalds sales figures. This chasing Call of Duty record breaking AAA sales figures investor driven game development business model is NOT sustainable.
The sooner developers realize that and quit chasing the multi million Call of Doodoo fairy numbers and get back to their roots, cut the suit bloat from the top, and get back to gamers making games for gamers, the better we will be.
Call of Duty sales numbers are a fluke. Get over it. Final Fantasy never has and never will sell like that.
Ask yourself, how can Square be disapointed and lose money and be in financial trouble when a game sells 4 million copies, but Namco can be in the black and consider it successful with 100,000 copies of Tales here, 100,000 copies of Ni no Kuni there, etc? Ni no Kuni was NOT CHEAP to make, you KNOW Studio Ghibli and the Tokyo Philharmonic cost some SERIOUS money. Yet it's considered a success and barely broke 1 million units. Lifetime. Barely.
Next time you talk to a friend who goes on about the newest Call of Duty, Titanfall, or some other upcoming macho chest thumping di*k bumping epeen vs mode only online competitive shooter and how "mad tyte dat sheit iz bro", or makes fun of you for playing games with fairies in them, kick him in the balls as hard as you can and kill him. He is the reason we don't have JRPGs anymore.
