topic.

No.

Other JPRG's may be better than FFXIII but people being stupid like they are will still say well FFXIII looks better so it must be better.

Other non-SE JRPG's just can't match SE's advertising budget and graphics quality so they're really just killing the genre bit by bit on consoles.

not usually, but given that FFXIII is sold out in some places then employees might recommend other JRPG's or just RPG's in general so it does have a slight possibility

What kind of employees?

Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target, ect will just kind of shrug their shoulders and when they think they're getting their next shipment in and I wouldn't trust a Gamestop employee as far as I could throw them.  Assuming they even know what type of game Final Fantasy is is giving them too much credit.

Knowing them they would probably say buy Halo or God of War.

ahh right i was talking about UK employees and just thought that US employees would be the same where they do refer other games like the one you ask for if they dont have it, not in like Wal-Mart or anywhere like that just the dedicated ones like HMV, GAME and Gamestation, but im not too sure on the supply situation over here as i ordered my copy from amazon but i know some of my friends found the game easily whereas others couldnt it was just were you shopped really.

but seeing as SE shipped 5 million and the sell through is 3.2 million so far a supply constraint is... questionable at this stage.

I don't really follow.

Do you mean previous JRPGs that have been released? As in the ones that are on the shelf right now? I highly doubtr it. You'll probably see a small amount of people who are going to the store and buying FFXIII and 'that second RPG they were waiting to get'. But there's going to be just as many people looking to buy another JRPG such as Demon Souls, Tales of Vesperia or Pokemon Gold/Silver as their secondary purchase as there are those who will pick up Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age or the latest expansion of WoW.

In the end, like anything released in the 'west', what will improve the sales of JRPGs is better marketing, more hype for new titles and more availability of the product. And JRPGs have been lacking in all three. Aside from a handful of titles this gen (FFXIII, Mario & Luigi: Bowsers Inside Story, Pokemon), JRPGs have been pretty much thrown to the wolves and expected to sell as well as they can given the circumstances. And considering the marketing budgets and amount of stock most JRPGs get...that's not very good.

Depends. I expect some newcomers in the genre who will try older JRPG's.

From what I understand, FF13 is a more casualized JRPG, removing complicated stuff like exploration, complex character advancement, and huge party controls. Players are no more going to shift from FF13 to the Persona series than they are going to shift from Wii Sports Resort swordfighting to Redsteel.

Well, I bouth White knight chronicles too when I got FFXIII, but I dont think it will have a big impact if it has one.

No, it is going to damage some of them, well certainly Star Ocean and White Knight Chronicles. It might boost the genre a tiny bit, but not much. For me, FF XIII is so much better than the rest of them, and so it is just going to make me more excited for Versus