True. I always like to think that it has something to do with the fact that NA was exposed to JRPGs earlier than Europe was. I mean, think about it: NA got the 4 Dragon Quest games for NES (with the first one being a 1989 release) while Europe didn't get any Dragon Quest until the release of Dragon Quest VIII (2006) on PS2. Final Fantasy wasn't released in Europe until FFVII (not counting some of the reskinned games and spinoffs like Mystic Quest), the first Shin Megami Tensei release in Europe was (correct me if I'm wrong) Lucifers Call (aka Nocturne) in 2005; America had its first exposure to the series with Revelations: Persona in 1996.

Nintendo of America really tried to push JRPGs during the genre's early days. They had almost localized Mother/Earth Bound, they published Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy and I think you got Dragon Warrior for free when you subscribed to Nintendo Power. They really wanted the genre to succed in North America. Europe had nothing of that.

It's probably a vicious cycle, since the lack of titles back in the day seems to result in a lack of interest now, which, in turn, results in a lack of titles. Though the situation has been getting better.

Again, there's no evidence behind this theory of mine, but it's what I like to think when noticing these differences. It does make sense, in my opinion.

Cause isn't localized in european languages but only in english. I know it cause i'm italian and i played much of the game in the list ;)

Only the 'big' franchises from Japan were being played in Europe. Final Fantasy, DQ 8, a little bit of SO but other than that a lot of series or stand-alone games didn't even make it to Europe. Xenogears, Arc the lad...

My guess is SMT wasn't known for being a 'good' series out here somewhere until the release of P3FES.
Maybe the world wide web helped a bit for SMT.

Digital Devil Saga and Nocturne (Lucifer's call) did some of the ground work during Ps2's reign to build the SMT name. Maybe that helped P3fes to sell a bit more than usual.

Although these numbers are not to be trusted of course...

From what i saw, it may be bigger for less niche games (FF, DQ). I guess most niche JRPG fans in Europe are used to import, because of the delays (when it's released)

Edit : I said BS, even bigger games have less sales in Europe. France/belgium is still the biggest market in europe for J-RPGs, thus i was confused.

Well,  JRPGs in general aren't that big in Europe!