What you are trying to make overly complicated, WoW, is nothing more than a common market trend wherein the first brand to suit the values of the consumer sufficiently gets the most attention at the expense of all others. Which is exactly what I'm pointing out: FF and DQ were the pioneer series of what every other RPG that sells worse than them does. No other RPG save the Pokemon games has ever even come close to selling as well as they do.

The fine details are irrelevant; there is no "dominant" action RPG series, there is no "dominant" strategy RPG series, there is no "dominant" RPG series beyond those two save Pokemon. And Pokemon is so very different from them that many aren't even willing to count it as an RPG in the same sense as FF and DQ. A market with so many sub-genres which only has two very similar series that sell well with every other product selling only a fraction as many copies is not a differentiated market. It is a market of copycats, where the pioneers are the ones that reap the majority of the profits while the imitators pick up the scraps.

Perhaps, not many games sell 1 million in Japan however, so you would have to weigh popularity vs how much you can sell.

1 Million copies sold is a big deal in a country with a population of 130,000,000.

1 Million in japan = 2.3 million in the US if you went with a direct ratio.

Comparing those that sell 500,000 or even a little less makes more sense.

Hence why most RPGs have low production values in the first place.

sure about that?

To me, LO just seems like it was made to copy the FF formula as much as possible. That appeals to both the west and Japan.

because the ones that tend not to sell that well really aren't that good. Tales of series fails (tremenously) when in comparison to ANY final fantasy and or DQ(and I hate DQ). DQ doesn't sell that well in americal either mind you. JRPGs suffer from the same sickness that FPSs suffer from, saturation. FPSs and RPGs last gen were a dime a dozen, many dont have the funds to pic up every mediocre game that comes out. That is why only the best of the best get noticed. If they cared about generating alot of sales they simply would make their games better, but they dont. The Tales series, as well as others, are simply there to generate a little bit of sales on a tiny budget, enough to make a reasonable profit. This is how the system works.

I'm not complicating anything.  I'm pointing out that you used Marketing terminology incorrectly, that's all.

Whatever layers of complication you're seeing aren't on my end.

Not really...because Japan has a higher % of gamers than the US. They just seem to only play hand helds this gen.

consoles aren't that popular in JP anymore. The new wii tales would struggle to make 500K

Fair enough, I suppose, WoW. Regardless, the RPG market has only three authentically dominant series. And of those three, two are very similar. As well, all three have been dominant series for at least a decade, two decades or more for FF and DQ. That is not the mark of a healthy industry, that is the mark of a stagnant industry. When consumers at large will only trust three brands to the exclusion of all others, the market is in trouble. Should one of those brands fall and no new brand with new values take its place, things will get even worse.

It funny how JP is ready to buy FF remakes over and over again yet they won't even consider new JRPGs. S-E must have cast a spell on the market there...LMAO

We're talking about Western sales right?  Then in that case, yeah, exclude Tales and SMT