You contradict your whole argument by claiming bad word of mouth when that was how many games took off back in that era less than favourable word of mouth didn't hurt the series back then what that proves is that reception of the games is not what determines the next installment's performance, XIII was also popular in Japan and Lightning is one of their preferred characters in the franchise, under this what you're saying the opposite result of what happened with XV should have taken place.

You clearly didn't read my earliar post and focused on one line as the console decline was the main topic of it, information is more widely available yet the Japanese market has never really been moved by it hence why even today very few western games make a splash over there. The reason for XV's performance is simple most of the gamers are on portable device not because of XIII, westerners are the ones who complain the most about XIII but XV still sold just as well as any other FF game in the west.

It was never a brand problem to begin with.

I'm saying that the industry and interest in RPGs was growing at such a strong rate, it would be able to combat any poor word of mouth from the previous series. As for XIII's popularity, you're citing Famitsu reader polls that have at most 1.5-2k responses. That's certainly enough of a sample size, but it's only a sample of the most hardcore fans. Look at Famitsu's Most Wanted, it doesn't coorelate to sales, because their readers aren't representative of Japan as a whole.

It can be argued that XV being the first FF of its kind and the prolonged developed garnered interest comparable or even higher then games back then especially as sales in the west seem unaffected by the west's luke warm reception to XIII. The's a difference between asking a sizable amount of people their view on one game compared to asking the same group to list their most wanted games, in the latter it becomes less notable because the group can all agree on a game that's not their most anticipated being a potential big game but in the case of asking the whole group whether they liked XIII or not the's less random elements in the answer you'd get from that.

It may not speak for the whole of Japan but I have a strong feeling if you asked the same amount of people in the west on their view of XIII the result will likely be in the opposite end of the spectrum.

We do play chinese games. League of Legends is one.

Is that popular outside of Asia? In any case, that's one. What else?

You're kidding right?

The game hasalmost more active players than Steam has of users.

Crossfire is also a chinese game.

Chinese games are one of the most played(ww) and the most competitives of all time.

Could they be one of the most played because China has a population of 1.35B?

Have you been living under a rock during the past decade? It's League of Legends, FFS. Coming regularly to game forums/websites, and not know about LoL?

 O_o

What's the player count outside of Asia?