A) Microsoft paid them a lot for exclusives or timed exclusives

B) 360 came out first, so they had time to develop with 360 dev kits for their JRPG games

C) With the payment they recieved from MS, MS will have their chance to increase 360 sales to at least match that of PS3's in Japan or reach maybe 200-300k in Japan or America.

and if this all fails in the short run, if 360 sales still can't go any higher to reach current Wii sales in Japan, nor reach Blue Dragon software sales, MS gives up, Japanese Devs gives up and go timed or exclusive to PS3 with their JRPG's because let's face it, PS3 already has an install base of 2+ million compared to 600k for 360.

If people like to say MGS4 could've had 3x more sales in America had it gone to 360, well same can be said for Tales of Vesperia or Infinite Undiscovery in Japan.

I can see how hard japanese dev's and MS for that reason trying to make the 360 a viable competitor but who knows when they'll get over it.

I don't think it either Inifinate Undiscover or Tales of Vesperia would have had 3 times more sales if they were on the ps3 aswell. While the 360 Install base is small, so is the PS3s. Anyway right now most RPGs are going to DS, with some other Major ones going to the 360/Psp, and some niche-slightly mainstream ones going to the Wii. I see the Wii having the most Jrpgs at end of the generation(not counting DS), but 80% of them will be NIche while 20% will be big titles. The 360 will be second with almost all of them being Mainstream, and a few Niche ones, and the PS3 will be pretty much last, but might share alot of mainstream ones with the 360, and have a few Niche ones. I do think that the Wii like the DS will make alot of the Niche Jrpgs somewhat more popular. Most will be New ips btw. Not many Existing ones except for Tales, Dragon Quest, Crystal Chronicles Monster Hunter, and Maybe Kingdom Hearts. So I think we will see.

A and B are almost certainly the real answers, with A being more important than B.

On a side note, do you ever intend to actually reply to your own threads, or do you just like starting new ones and seeing what happens?

Either way, Xbox is making inroads into Japan. Next time, Xbox will have a good shot a winning America, a chance of winning EU (I would guess 25% chance) and a good shot at getting a base in Japan- probably gamecube numbers or better if they moneyhat Japanese games again next gen the way they have this gen.

JRPG's are niche market games. FF series is only JRPG series that is mainstream.

maybe japanese developers just want to make games for the western market, where the Xbox360 is the undisputed leader with 7 million consols ahead of the PS3? (of course, except Wii and handhelds :D)

It is not that simple that whenever a game gets its release on the Xbox360, MS paid them. It is time for the PS3-fans to recognize, that the 360 is the current leader in USA and Europe. It sells more software than the PS3, even calculated with the same Userbase, 360 version of games mostly sell better. (I know GTA IV sold better on the PS3, related to its userbase, same for DMC, but still most of the games sell better on the Xbox)

Games like Lost Odyssey showed that this might work out.

I am not saying MS did not pay them at all, but please remember, there are some good reasons to develop for the Xbox360.

Be grateful that Microsoft is moneyhatting publishers to make these JRPGs for HD consoles where returns are small, when most have moved on to where the real money is, the DS. When MS stops paying for these games, they will stop appearing altogether. A publisher can probably make 3-5 RPGs on the DS that will each have the same sales as an HD RPG but each would be more profitable. Don't believe me? Look at Atlus and Square-Enix's DS lineup and then look at their console lineups. Even the Wii doesn't seem to register to them over the DS, for now. The PS3 will never be a viable RPG console unless they play Microsoft's game.

Dragon Quest(Mostly Japan, but also sells fairly well in the West, just not as good as it does in Japan), Star Ocean, Monster Hunter(Mostly Japan) Tales of(prety mainstream, the last title sold over 1mln WW) and Pokemon(especially, actually more mainstream than FF) are some other Mainstream Jrpgs. So I wouldn't say that.

Monster Hunter is not an RPG.