Were you expecting Pokemon, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts numbers? There's not a single jRPG that can match up with those franchises.

Not even Persona - as good as they may be couldnt live up to those above mention franchises.

Check the charts - those above mention IPs have their games all over at the top, middle are Western RPGs and at the bottom are the new/current gen jRPGs.

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One of the issues is that people in the past expected games from SE, Capcom and Namco - and other japanese companies but western companies have come up with their own ideas and the gaming population boomed.

jRPGs arent dead - they are foreshadowed by other genres like Open World and FPS.

I doubt we'll see any jRPG from anyone making as many sales in the past.

People just arent interested in Japanese games as much as many people here may think. Brand name is the only reason why the above mention games and other games like Metal Gear Solid sell.

Ni No Kuni is a good game however dont expect it to make millions - the reason why it didnt sell isnt because it was a bad game - its because people arent as interested in the genre or the type.

Proof?

When you have the "worst" RPG ever made and yet it sold that much just on one console tells you that brand names still have a hold on to them.

What's wrong with only selling 100k if they manage to make a profit?

Just because it was made "dirt cheap" doesn't mean it's a bad game.  I don't really understand your mentality when it comes to small games/indie games==bad.  It's not something that's necessary.  There are thousands of different games, it's unlikely most of them will even sell 100k, let alone whatever you expect them to sell.  The more it sells the more likely they'll be able to build up the next one, so if the first game sells 100k and then the 2nd game sells 200k, then they are able to spend more.  

I just don't get it, it's not like all millionaires were born millionaires, they were built up and then perhaps at some point the next one is born a millionaire.  It's not like this kind of thing just happens though.  A 100k game should have made about 2.4 million dollars, do you have 2.4 million dollars lying around to make a game like that?

Japan seems to have mostly small development teams, so they make smaller games or take longer to make larger games.  

Based on the fact that they are still making these games, that should be indicative of something, not everything has to be a huge seller.  If only 100 people in the world had a disease, but it was guaranteed to kill them, would you think that a cure would not be worth it because it does not affect many people.  These games affect 1000x as many people in [obviously] lesser ways, but people are still affected by them.  

Japan makes a lot of niche titles, but without them, there would be a lot of people who wouldn't be getting them obviously.  Just because America is going for the big budget titles, doesn't mean Japan has to also.